V 


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FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 


F^R  AlVAT 
^ND  LONG  AGO 


A  HISTORY 
OF  MY  EARLY  LIFE 


BY 

W.    H.  HUDSON 

AUTHOR  OF  "idle  DAYS  IN  PATAGONIA,"  **THE  PURPLE  LAND," 
"a  CRYSTAL  AGE,"  * 'ADVENTURES  AMONG  BIRDS,"  ETC. 


NEW  YORK 
E.  P.  BUTTON  &  COMPANY 
68i  FIFTH  AVENUE 
1918 


Copyright,  1918, 
By  E.  P.  DUTTON  &  COMPAIQY 


All  Rights  Reserved 


First  printing  October,  1918 

Second  printin J .  .  .November,  1918 
Tkird  printing.  ..December,  1918 
Fourth  printing.  .  .December,  1918 

Fifth  printing  May,  1919 

Sixth  printing.  .  .  .November,  1919 
Seventh  printing  April,  1920 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  I 

EARLIEST  MEMORIES 

Preamble — The  house  where  I  was  born — The  singular  ombu 
tree — tree  without  a  name — The  plain — The  ghost  of  a 
murdered  slave — Our  playmate,  the  old  sheep-dog — A  first 
riding-lesson — The  cattle:  an  evening  scene — My  mother 
— Captain  Scott — The  hermit  and  his  awful  penance 


CHAPTER  n 

MY  NEW  HOME 

We  quit  our  old  home — ^A  winter  day  journey — ^Aspect  of  the 
country — Our  new  home — A  prisoner  in  the  barn — The 
plantation — A  paradise  of  rats — An  evening  scene — The 
people  of  the  house — A  beggar  on  horseback — Mr.  Trigg 
our  schoolmaster — His  double  nature — Impersonates  an 
old  woman — Reading  Dickens — Mr.  Trigg  degenerates — 
Once  more  a  homeless  wanderer  on  the  great  plain  . 


CHAPTER  in 

DEATH  OF  AN  OLD  DOG 

The  old  dog  Caesar — His  powerful  personality — Last  days  and 
end — The  old  dog's  burial — The  fact  of  death  is  brought 
home  to  me — ^A  child's  mental  anguish — My  mother  com- 
forts me — Limitations  of  the  child's  mind — Fear  of  death 
— ^Witnessing  the  slaughter  of  cattle — A  man  in  the  moat 
— Margarita,  the  nursery-maid — Her  beauty  and  lovable- 
ness — Her  death — I  refuse  to  see  her  dead 


VI 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  PLANTATION 

Living  with  trees — ^Winter  violets — The  house  is  made  habit- 
able— Red  willow — Scizzor-tail  and  carrion-hawk — Lorn- 
bardy  poplars — Black  acacia — Other  trees — The  fosse  or 
moat — Rats — A  trial  of  strength  with  an  armadillo — Opos- 
sums living  with  a  snake — Alfalfa  field  and  butterflies — 
Cane  brake — Weeds  and  fennel — Peach  trees  in  blossom — 
Paroquets — Singing  of  a  field  finch — Concert-singing  in 
birds — Old  John — Cow-birds'  singing — ^Arrival  of  summer 
migrants  

CHAPTER  V 

ASPECTS  OF  THE  PLAIN 

Appearance  of  a  green  level  land — Cardoon  and  giant  thistles — 
Villages  of  the  vizcachay  a  large  burrowing  rodent — Groves 
and  plantations  seen  like  islands  on  the  wide  level  plains — 
Trees  planted  by  the  early  colonists — Decline  of  the  colo- 
nists from  an  agricultural  to  a  pastoral  people — Houses  as 
part  of  the  landscape — Flesh  diet  of  the  gauchos — Summer 
change  in  the  aspect  of  the  plain — The  water-like  mirage — 
The  giant  thistle  and  a  ^Hhistle  year'' — Fear  of  fires — ^An 
incident  at  a  fire — The  pampero,  or  south-west  wind,  and 
the  fall  of  the  thistles — Thistle-down  and  thistle-seed  as 
food  for  animals — A  great  pampero  storm — Big  hailstones 
— Damage  caused  by  hail — Zango,  an  old  horse,  killed — 
Zango  and  his  master  

CHAPTER  VI 

SOME  BIRD  ADVENTURES 

Visit  to  a  river  on  the  pampas — A  first  long  walk — ^Water-fowl 
— My  first  sight  of  flamingoes — ^A  great  dove  visitation — 
Strange  tameness  of  the  birds — ^Vain  attempts  at  putting 
salt  on  their  tails — An  ethical  question:  When  is  a  lie  not 
a  lie? — The  caranchoy  a  vulture-eagle — Our  pair  of  car  an- 
chos — Their  nest  in  a  peach  tree — I  am  ambitious  to  take 
their  eggs — The  birds'  crimes — I  am  driven  off  by  the 
birds — ^The  nest  pulled  down  


CONTENTS 


VII 


CHAPTER  VII 

MY  FIRST  VISIT  TO  BUENOS  AYRES  page 

Happiest  time — First  visit  to  the  capital — Old  and  New  Buenos 
Ayres — Vivid  impressions — Solitary  walk — How  I  learnt 
to  go  alone — Lost — The  house  we  stayed  at  and  the  sea- 
like river — Rough  and  narrow  streets — Rows  of  posts — 
Carts  and  noise — A  great  church  festival-^Young  men  in 
black  and  scarlet — River  scenes — Washerwomen  and  their 
language — Their  word-fights  with  young  fashionables — ■ 
Night  watchmen — A  young  gentleman's  pastime — A  fish- 
ing dog — A  fine  gentleman  seen  stoning  little  birds — ^A 
glimpse  of  Don  Eusebio,  the  Dictator's  fool     ...  92 

CHAPTER  VIII 

THE  tyrant's  fall  AND  WHAT  FOLLOWED 

The  portraits  in  our  drawing-room — The  Dictator  Rosas  who 
was  like  an  Englishman — The  strange  face  of  his  wife,  En- 
carnacion — The  traitor  Urquiza — The  Minister  of  War,  his 
peacocks  and  his  son — Home  again  from  the  city — The  war 
deprives  us  of  our  playmate — Natalia,  our  shepherd's  wife 
— Her  son,  Medardo — The  Alcalde,  our  grand  old  man — 
Battle  of  Monte  Caseros — The  defeated  army — Demands 
for  fresh  horses — In  peril — My  father's  shining  defects — 
His  pleasure  in  a  thunderstorm — ^A  childlike  trust  in  his 
fellow-men — Soldiers  turn  upon  their  officer — A  refugee 
given  up  and  murdered — Our  Alcalde  again — On  cutting 
throats — Ferocity  and  cynicism — Native  blood-lust  and  its 
effects  on  a  boy's  mind — Feeling  about  Rosas — A  bird 
poem  or  tale — Vain  search  for  lost  poem  and  story  of  its 
authorship — The  Dictator's  daughter — Time,  the  old  god  107 

CHAPTER  IX 

OUR  NEIGHBOURS  AT  THE  POPLARS 

Homes  on  the  great  green  plain — Making  the  acquaintance  of 
our  neighbours — The  attraction  of  birds — Los  Alamos  and 
the  old  lady  of  the  house — Her  treatment  of  St.  Anthony 
— The  strange  Barboza  family — The  man  of  blood — Great 
fighters — Barboza  as  a  singer — A  great  quarrel  but  no 
fight — ^A  cattle-marking — Dona  Lucia  del  Ombii — A  feast 
— Barboza  sings  and  is  insulted  by  El  Rengo — Refuses  to 


VIII 


CONTENTS 


fight — The  two  kinds  of  fighters — poor  little  angel  on 
horseback — My  feeling  for  Anjelita — Boys  unable  to  ex- 
press sympathy — quarrel  with  a  friend — Enduring  image 
of  a  little  girl  132 

CHAPTER  X 

OUR  NEAREST  ENGLISH  NEIGHBOUR 

Casa  Antigua,  our  nearest  English  neighbour's  house — Old 
Lombardy  poplars — Cardoon  thistle  or  wild  artichoke — 
Mr.  Royd,  an  English  sheep-farmer — Making  sheep's-milk 
cheeses  under  difficulties — Mr.  Royd's  native  wife — The 
negro  servants — The  two  daughters:  a  striking  contrast — 
The  white  blue-eyed  child  and  her  dusky  playmate — A 
happy  family — Our  visits  to  Casa  Antigua — Gorgeous  din- 
ners— Estanislao  and  his  love  of  wild  life — The  Royds'  re- 
turn visit — A  home-made  carriage — The  gaucho's  primi- 
tive conveyance — The  happy  home  broken  up    .      .  .147 

CHAPTER  XI 

A  BREEDER  OF  PIEBALDS 

La  Tapera,  a  native  estancia — Don  Gregorio  Gandara — His 
grotesque  appearance  and  strange  laugh — Gandara 's  wife 
and  her  habits  and  pets — My  dislike  of  hairless  dogs — Gan- 
dara's  daughters — A  pet  ostrich — In  the  peach  orchard — 
Gandara's  herds  of  piebald  brood  mares — His  masterful 
temper — His  own  saddle-horses — Creating  a  sensation  at 
gaucho  gatherings — The  younger  daughter's  lovers — Her 
marriage  at  our  house — The  priest  and  the  wedding  break- 
fast— Demetria  forsaken  by  her  husband    .      .      .  .156 

CHAPTER  XII 

THE  HEAD  OF  A  DECAYED  HOUSE 

The  Estancia  Canada  Seca — Low  lands  and  floods — Don  Anas- 
tacio,  a  gaucho  exquisite — A  greatly  respected  man — Poor 
relations — Don  Anastacio  a  pig-fancier — Narrow  escape 
from  a  pig — Charm  of  the  low  green  lands — The  flower 
called  mdcachina — A  sweet-tasting  bulb — Beauty  of  the 
green  flower-sprinkled  turf — A  haunt  of  the  golden  plover — 
The  holas — My  plover-hunting  experience — Rebuked  by  a 
gaucho — ^A  green  spot,  our  playground  in  summer  and  lake 


CONTENTS  IX 

PAGE 

in  winter — The  venomous  toad-like  Ceratophrys — Vocal 
performance  of  the  toad-like  creature — We  make  war  on 
them — The  great  lake  battle  and  its  results     .      .  .167 

CHAPTER  XIII 

A  PATRIARCH  OF  THE  PAMPAS 

The  grand  old  man  of  the  plains — Don  Evaristo  Penalva,  the 
Patriarch — My  first  sight  of  his  estancia  house — Don 
Evaristo  described — A  husband  of  six  wives — How  he  was 
esteemed  and  loved  by  every  one — On  leaving  home  I  lose 
sight  of  Don  Evaristo — I  meet  him  again  after  seven  years 
— His  failing  health — His  old  first  wife  and  her  daughter, 
Cipriana — The  tragedy  of  Cipriana — Don  Evaristo  dies 
and  I  lose  sight  of  the  family  180 

CHAPTER  XIV 

THE  DOVECOTE 

A  favourite  climbing  tree — The  desire  to  fly — Soaring  birds — A 
peregrine  falcon — The  dovecote  and  pigeon-pies — The  fal- 
con's depredations — A  splendid  aerial  feat — A  secret  en- 
emy of  the  dovecote — A  short-eared  owl  in  a  loft — My 
father  and  birds — A  strange  flower — The  owls'  nesting- 
place — Great  owl  visitations  190 

CHAPTER  XV 

SERPENT  AND  CHILD 

My  pleasure  in  bird  life — Mammals  at  our  new  home — Snakes 
and  how  children  are  taught  to  regard  them — A  colony  of 
snakes  in  the  house — Their  hissing  confabulations — Find- 
ing serpent  sloughs — A  serpent's  saviour — A  brief  history 
of  our  English  neighbours,  the  Blakes      .      .      .  .205 

CHAPTER  XVI 

A  SERPENT  MYSTERY 

A  new  feeling  about  snakes — Common  snakes  of  the  country — 
A  barren  weedy  patch — Discovery  of  a  large  black  snake — 
Watching  for  its  reappearance — Seen  going  to  its  den — 
The  desire  to  see  it  again — A  vain  search — Watching  a 


X 


CONTENTS 


bat — The  black  serpent  reappears  at  my  feet — Emotions 
and  conjectures — Melanism — My  baby  sister  and  a  strange 
snake — The  mystery  solved  

CHAPTER  XVII 
A  boy's  animism 

The  animistic  faculty  and  its  survival  in  us — A  boy's  animism 
and  its  persistence — Impossibility  of  seeing  our  past  ex- 
actly as  it  was — Serge  Aksakoff's  history  of  his  childhood 
— The  child's  delight  in  nature  purely  physical — First  in- 
timations of  animism  in  the  child — How  it  affected  me — 
Feeling  with  regard  to  flowers — A  flower  and  my  mother 
— History  of  a  flower — Animism  with  regard  to  trees — Lo- 
cust trees  by  moonlight — Animism  and  nature-worship — 
Animistic  emotion  not  uncommon — Cowper  and  the  Yard- 
ley  oak — The  religionist's  fear  of  nature — Pantheistic 
Christianity — Survival  of  nature-worship  in  England — 
The  feeling  for  nature — Wordsworth's  pantheism  and  ani- 
mistic emotion  in  poetry  

CHAPTER  XVIII 

THE  NEW  SCHOOLMASTER 

Mr.  Trigg  recalled — His  successor — Father  O'Keefe — His  mild 
rule  and  love  of  angling — My  brother  is  assisted  in  his 
studies  by  the  priest — Happy  fishing  afternoons — The 
priest  leaves  us — How  he  had  been  working  out  his  own 
salvation — We  run  wild  once  more — My  brother's  plan 
for  a  journal  to  be  called  The  Tin  Box — Our  imperious 
editor's  exactions — My  little  brother  revolts — The  Tin 
Box  smashed  up — The  loss  it  was  to  me  .... 

CHAPTER  XIX 

BROTHERS 

Our  third  and  last  schoolmaster — His  many  accomplishments 
— His  weakness  and  final  breakdown — My  important 
brother — Four  brothers,  unlike  in  everything  except  the 
voice — A  strange  meeting — Jack  the  Killer,  his  life  and 
character — A  terrible  fight — My  brother  seeks  instruc- 
tions from  Jack — The  gaucho's  way  of  fighting  and  Jack's 


CONTENTS 


XI 


contrasted — Our  sham  fight  with  knives — A  wound  and 
the  result — My  feehng  about  Jack  and  his  eyes — Bird- 
lore — My  two  elder  brothers'  practical  joke     .      .      .  247 

CHAPTER  XX 

BIRDING  IN  THE  MARSHES 

Visiting  the  marshes — Pajonales  and  juncales — Abundant  bird 
life — A  coots'  metropolis — Frightening  the  coots — Grebe 
and  painted  snipe  colonies — The  haunt  of  the  social  marsh 
hawk — The  beautiful  jacana  and  its  eggs — The  colony  of 
marsh  trupials — The  bird's  music — The  aquatic  plant  du- 
rasmillo — The  trupial's  nest  and  eggs — Recalling  a  beauty 
that  has  vanished — Our  games  with  gaucho  boys — I  am 
injured  by  a  bad  boy — The  shepherd's  advice — Getting 
my  revenge  in  a  treacherous  manner — Was  it  right  or 
wrong? — The  game  of  hunting  the  ostrich    ....  260 

CHAPTER  XXI 

WILD-FOWLING  ADVENTURES 

My  sporting  brother  and  the  armoury — I  attend  him  on  his 
shooting  expeditions — Adventure  with  golden  plover — ^A 
morning  after  wild  duck — Our  punishment — I  learn  to 
shoot — My  first  gun — My  first  wild  duck — My  ducking 
tactics — My  gun's  infirmities — Duck-shooting  with  a  blun- 
derbuss— Ammunition  runs  out — An  adventure  with  rosy- 
bill  duck — Coarse  gunpowder  and  home-made  shot — The 
war  danger  comes  our  way — We  prepare  to  defend  the 
house — The  danger  over  and  my  brother  leaves  home    .  271 

CHAPTER  XXII 
boyhood's  end 

The  book — The  Saladero,  or  killing-grounds,  and  their  smell — 
Walls  built  of  bullocks'  skulls — A  pestilential  city — River 
water  and  Aljibe  water — Days  of  lassitude — Novel  scenes 
— Home  again — Typhus — My  first  day  out — Birthday  re- 
flections— What  I  asked  of  life — A  boy's  mind — A  broth- 
er's resolution — End  of  our  thousand  and  one  nights — ^A 
reading  spell — My  boyhood  ends  in  disaster      .      .  .285 


XII 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

A  DARKENED  LIFE  PAGE 

A  severe  illness — Case  pronounced  hopeless — How  it  affected 
me — Religious  doubts  and  a  mind  distressed — Lawless 
thoughts — Conversation  with  an  old  gaucho  about  re- 
ligion— George  Combe  and  the  desire  for  immortality     .  301 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

LOSS  AND  GAIN 

The  souFs  loneliness — My  mother  and  her  death — A  mother's 
love  for  her  son — Her  character — Anecdotes — ^A  mystery 
and  a  revelation — The  autumnal  migration  of  birds — 
Moonlight  vigils — My  absent  brother's  return — He  intro- 
duces me  to  Darwin's  works — ^A  new  philosophy  of  life — 
Conclusion       .      ,      »      .      o  313 


FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 


FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 


CHAPTER  I 
Earliest  Memories 

Preamble — The  house  where  I  was  born — The  singular 
Ombu  tree — A  tree  without  a  name — The  plain — The 
ghost  of  a  murdered  slave — Our  playmate,  the  old 
sheep-dog — A  first  riding-lesson — The  cattle:  an  even- 
ing scene — My  mother — Captain  Scott— The  hermit 
and  his  awful  penance. 

It  was  never  my  intention  to  write  an  autobiography. 
Since  I  took  to  writing  in  my  middle  years  I  have, 
from  time  to  time,  related  some  incident  of  my  boy- 
hood, and  these  are  contained  in  various  chapters  in 
The  Naturalist  in  La  Plata,  Birds  and  Man,  Adventures 
among  Birds,  and  other  works,  also  in  two  or  three 
magazine  articles:  all  this  material  would  have  been 
kept  back  if  I  had  contemplated  such  a  book  as  this. 
When  my  friends  have  asked  me  in  recent  years  why 
I  did  not  write  a  history  of  my  early  life  on  the 
pampas,  my  answer  was  that  I  had  already  told  all 
that  was  worth  telling  in  these  books.  And  I  really 
believed  it  was  so;  for  when  a  person  endeavours  to 
recall  his  early  life  in  its  entirety  he  finds  it  is  not 
possible:  he  is  like  one  who  ascends  a  hill  to  survey 
the  prospect  before  him  on  a  day  of  heavy  cloud  and 


2      FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

shadow,  who  sees  at  a  distance,  now  here,  now  there, 
some  feature  in  the  landscape — hill  or  wood  or  tower 
or  spire — touched  and  made  conspicuous  by  a  tran- 
sitory sunbeam  while  all  else  remains  in  obscurity. 
The  scenes,  people,  events  we  are  able  by  an  effort 
to  call  up  do  not  present  themselves  in  order;  there 
is  no  order,  no  sequence  or  regular  progression — ^noth- 
ing, in  fact,  but  isolated  spots  or  patches,  brightly  il- 
lumined and  vividly  seen,  in  the  midst  of  a  wide 
shrouded  mental  landscape. 

It  is  easy  to  fall  into  the  delusion  that  the  few 
things  thus  distinctly  remembered  and  visualized  are 
precisely  those  which  were  most  important  in  our  life, 
and  on  that  account  were  saved  by  memory  while  all 
the  rest  has  been  permanently  blotted  out.  That  is 
indeed  how  our  memory  serves  and  fools  us;  for  at 
some  period  of  a  man's  life — at  all  events  of  some 
lives — in  some  rare  state  of  the  mind,  it  is  all  at  once 
revealed  to  him  as  by  a  miracle  that  nothing  is  ever 
blotted  out. 

It  was  through  falling  into  some  such  state  as  that, 
during  which  I  had  a  wonderfully  clear  and  continuous 
vision  of  the  past,  that  I  was  tempted — forced  I  may 
say — to  write  this  account  of  my  early  years.  I  will 
relate  the  occasion,  as  I  imagine  that  the  reader  who 
is  a  psychologist  will  find  as  much  to  interest  him  in 
this  incident  as  in  anything  else  contained  in  the 
book. 

I  was  feeling  weak  and  depressed  when  I  came  down 
from  London  one  November  evening  to  the  south  coast: 
the  sea,  the  clear  sky,  the  bright  colours  of  the  after- 
glow kept  me  too  long  on  the  front  in  an  east  wind  in 


EARLIEST  MEMORIES 


3 


that  low  condition,  with  the  result  that  I  was  laid  up 
for  six  weeks  with  a  very  serious  illness.  Yet  when 
it  was  over  I  looked  back  on  those  six  weeks  as  a  happy 
time!  Never  had  I  thought  so  little  of  physical  pain. 
Never  had  I  felt  confinement  less^ — I  who  feel,  when  I 
am  out  of  sight  of  living,  growing  grass,  and  out  of 
sound  of  birds'  voices  and  all  rural  sounds,  that  I  am 
not  properly  alive! 

On  the  second  day  of  my  illness,  during  an  interval 
of  comparative  ease,  I  fell  into  recollections  of  my  child- 
hood, and  at  once  I  had  that  far,  that  forgotten  past  with 
me  again  as  I  had  never  previously  had  it.  It  was  not 
like  that  mental  condition,  known  to  most  persons,  when 
some  sight  or  sound  or,  more  frequently,  the  perfume 
of  some  flower,  associated  with  our  early  Hfe,  restores 
the  past  suddenly  and  so  vividly  that  it  is  almost  an  illu- 
sion. That  is  an  intensely  emotional  condition  and  van- 
ishes as  quickly  as  it  comes.  This  was  different.  To 
return  to  the  simile  and  metaphor  used  at  the  beginning, 
it  was  as  if  the  cloud  shadows  and  haze  had  passed  away 
and  the  entire  wide  prospect  beneath  me  made  clearly 
visible.  Over  it  all  my  eyes  could  range  at  will,  choos- 
ing this  or  that  point  to  dwell  on,  to  examine  it  in  all  its 
details ;  and,  in  the  case  of  some  person  known  to  me  as 
a  child,  to  follow  his  life  till  it  ended  or  passed  from 
sight;  then  to  return  to  the  same  point  again  to  repeat 
the  process  with  other  lives  and  resume  my  rambles  in 
the  old  familiar  haunts. 

What  a  happiness  it  would  be,  I  thought,  in  spite  of 
discomfort  and  pain  and  danger,  if  this  vision  would 
continue!  It  was  not  to  be  expected:  nevertheless  it 
did  not  vanish,  and  on  the  second  day  I  set  myself  to 


4     FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

try  and  save  it  from  the  oblivion  which  would  presently 
cover  it  again.  Propped  up  with  pillows  I  began  with 
pencil  and  writing-pad  to  put  it  down  in  some  sort  of 
order,  and  went  on  with  it  at  intervals  during  the  whole 
six  weeks  of  my  confinement,  and  in  this  way  produced 
the  first  rough  draft  of  the  book. 

And  all  this  time  I  never  ceased  wondering  at  my  own 
mental  state;  I  thought  of  it  when,  quickly  tired,  my 
trembling  fingers  dropped  the  pencil;  or  when  I  woke 
from  uneasy  sleep  to  find  the  vision  still  before  me,  in- 
viting, insistently  calling  to  me,  to  resume  my  childish 
rambles  and  adventures  of  long  ago  in  that  strange  world 
where  I  first  saw  the  light. 

It  was  to  me  a  marvellous  experience;  to  be  here, 
propped  up  with  pillows  in  a  dimly-lighted  room,  the 
night-nurse  idly  dosing  by  the  fire;  the  sound  of  the 
everlasting  wind  in  my  ears,  howling  outside  and  dash- 
ing the  rain  like  hailstones  against  the  window-panes; 
to  be  awake  to  all  this,  feverish  and  ill  and  sore,  con- 
scious of  my  danger  too,  and  at  the  same  time  to  be 
thousands  of  miles  away,  out  in  the  sun  and  wind,  re- 
joicing in  other  sights  and  sounds,  happy  again  with  that 
ancient  long-lost  and  now  recovered  happiness! 

During  the  three  years  that  have  passed  since  I  had 
that  strange  experience,  I  have  from  time  to  time,  when 
in  the  mood,  gone  back  to  the  book  and  have  had  to 
cut  it  down  a  good  deal  and  to  reshape  it,  as  in  the  first 
draft  it  would  have  made  too  long  and  formless  a  history. 

The  house  where  I  was  born,  on  the  South  American 
pampas,  was  quaintly  named  Los  Veinte-cinco  Ombues, 
which  means  ''The  Twenty-five  Ombu  Trees/'  there 


EARLIEST  MEMORIES 


being  just  twenty-five  of  these  indigenous  trees — gigan- 
tic in  size,  and  standing  wide  apart  in  a  row  about  400 
yards  long.  The  ombu  is  a  very  singular  tree  indeed, 
and  being  the  only  representative  of  tree-vegetation, 
natural  to  the  soil,  on  those  great  level  plains,  and  hav- 
ing also  many  curious  superstitions  connected  with  it, 
it  is  a  romance  in  itself.  It  belongs  to  the  rare  Phyto- 
lacca family,  and  has  an  immense  girth — forty  or  fifty 
feet  in  some  cases;  at  the  same  time  the  wood  is  so  soft 
and  spongy  that  it  can  be  cut  into  with  a  knife,  and  is 
utterly  unfit  for  firewood,  for  when  cut  up  it  refuses  to 
dry,  but  simply  rots  away  like  a  ripe  water-melon.  It 
also  grows  slowly,  and  its  leaves,  which  are  large,  glossy 
and  deep  green,  like  laurel  leaves,  are  poisonous ;  and  be- 
cause of  its  uselessness  it  will  probably  become  extinct, 
like  the  graceful  pampas  grass  in  the  same  region.  In 
this  exceedingly  practical  age  men  quickly  lay  the  axe 
at  the  root  of  things  which,  in  their  view,  only  cumber 
the  ground;  but  before  other  trees  had  been  planted  the 
antiquated  and  grand-looking  ombu  had  its  uses;  it 
served  as  a  gigantic  landmark  to  the  traveller  on  the 
great  monotonous  plains,  and  also  afforded  refreshing 
shade  to  man  and  horse  in  summer;  while  the  native 
doctor  or  herbalist  would  sometimes  pluck  a  leaf  for  a 
patient  requiring  a  very  violent  remedy  for  his  disorder. 
Our  tree?  were  about  a  century  old  and  very  large,  and, 
as  they  stood  on  an  elevation,  they  could  be  easily  seen 
at  a  distance  of  ten  miles.  At  noon  in  summer  the  cat- 
tle and  sheep,  of  which  we  had  a  large  number,  used  to 
rest  in  their  shade;  one  large  tree  also  afforded  us  chil- 
dren a  splendid  play-house,  and  we  used  to-  carry  up  a 


6     FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 


number  of  planks  to  construct  safe  bridges  from  branch 
to  branch,  and  at  noon,  when  our  elders  were  sleeping 
their  siesta,  we  would  have  our  arboreal  games  un- 
molested. 

Besides  the  famous  twenty-five,  there  was  one  other 
tree  of  a  different  species,  growing  close  to  the  house, 
and  this  was  known  all  over  the  neighbourhood  as  *'The 
Tree,''  this  proud  name  having  been  bestowed  on  it  be- 
cause it  was  the  only  one  of  the  kind  known  in  that  part 
of  the  country;  our  native  neighbours  always  affirmed 
that  it  was  the  only  one  in  the  world.  It  was  a  fine  large 
old  tree,  with  a  white  bark,  long  smooth  white  thorns, 
and  dark-green  undeciduous  foliage.  Its  blossoming 
time  was  in  November — a  month  about  as  hot  as  an 
English  July — and  it  would  then  become  covered  with 
tassels  of  minute  wax-like  flowers,  pale  straw-colour, 
and  of  a  wonderful  fragrance,  which  the  soft  summer 
wind  would  carry  for  miles  on  its  wings.  And  in  this 
way  our  neighbours  would  discover  that  the  flowering 
season  had  come  to  the  tree  they  so  much  admired,  and 
they  would  come  to  beg  for  a  branch  to  take  home  with 
them  to  perfume  their  lowly  houses. 

The  pampas  are,  in  most  places,  level  as  a  billiard- 
table;  just  where  we  lived,  however,  the  country  hap- 
pened to  be  undulating,  and  our  house  stood  on  the  sum- 
mit of  one  of  the  highest  elevations.  Before  the  house 
stretched  a  great  grassy  plain,  level  to  the  horizon,  while 
at  the  back  it  sloped  abruptly  down  to  a  broad,  deep 
stream,  which  emptied  itself  in  the  river  Plata,  about 
six  miles  to  the  east.  This  stream,  with  its  three  an- 
cient red  willow-trees  growing  on  the  banks,  was  a  source 


EARLIEST  MEMORIES 


7 


of  endless  pleasure  to  us.  Whenever  we  went  down  to 
play  on  the  banks,  the  fresh  penetrating  scent  of  the 
moist  earth  had  a  strangely  exhilarating  effect,  making 
us  wild  with  joy.  I  am  able  now  to  recall  these  sensa- 
tions, and  believe  that  the  sense  of  smell,  which  seems 
to  diminish  as  we  grow  older,  until  it  becomes  some- 
thing scarcely  worthy  of  being  called  a  sense,  is  nearly 
as  keen  in  little  children  as  in  the  inferior  animals,  and, 
when  they  live  with  nature,  contributes  as  much  to  their 
pleasure  as  sight  or  hearing.  I  have  often  observed 
that  small  children,  when  brought  on  to  low,  moist 
ground  from  a  high  level,  give  loose  to  a  sudden  spon- 
taneous gladness,  running,  shouting,  and  rolling  over 
the  grass  just  like  dogs,  and  I  have  no  doubt  that  the 
fresh  smell  of  the  earth  is  the  cause  of  their  joyous 
excitement. 

Our  house  was  a  long  low  structure,  built  of  brick, 
and,  being  very  old,  naturally  had  the  reputation  of 
being  haunted.  A  former  proprietor,  half  a  century 
before  I  was  born,  once  had  among  his  slaves  a  very 
handsome  young  negro,  who,  on  account  of  his  beauty 
and  amiability,  was  a  special  favourite  with  his  mistress. 
Her  preference  filled  his  poor  silly  brains  with  dreams 
and  aspirations,  and,  deceived  by  her  gracious  manner, 
he  one  day  ventured  to  approach  her  in  the  absence  of 
his  master  and  told  her  his  feelings.  She  could  not 
forgive  so  terrible  an  insult  to  her  pride,  and  when 
her  husband  returned  went  to  him,  white  with  indigna- 
tion, and  told  him  how  this  miserable  slave  had  abused 
their  kindness.  The  husband  had  an  implacable  heart, 
and  at  his  command  the  offender  was  suspended  by  the 
wrists  to  a  low,  horizontal  branch  of  'The  Tree,"  and 


8      FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 


there,  in  sight  of  his  master  and  mistress,  he  was 
scourged  to  death  by  his  fellow-slaves.  His  battered 
body  was  then  taken  down  and  buried  in  a  deep  hollow 
at  some  little  distance  from  the  last  of  the  long  row  of 
ombu  trees.  It  was  the  ghost  of  this  poor  black,  whose 
punishment  had  been  so  much  heavier  than  his  ofifence 
deserved,  that  was  supposed  to  haunt  the  place.  It  was 
not,  however,  a  conventional  ghost,  stalking  about  in  a 
white  sheet;  those  who  had  seen  it  averred  that  it  in- 
variably rose  up  from  the  spot  where  the  body  had  been 
buried,  like  a  pale,  luminous  exhalation  from  the  earth, 
and,  assuming  a  human  shape,  floated  slowly  towards 
the  house,  and  roamed  about  the  great  trees,  or,  seat- 
ing itself  on  an  old  projecting  root,  would  remain  mo- 
tionless for  hours  in  a  dejected  attitude.    I  never  saw  it. 

Our  constant  companion  and  playmate  in  those  days 
was  a  dog,  whose  portrait  has  never  faded  from  remem- 
brance, for  he  was  a  dog  with  features  and  a  personality 
which  impressed  themselves  deeply  on  the  mind.  He 
came  to  us  in  a  rather  mysterious  manner.  One  summer 
evening  the  shepherd  was  galloping  round  the  flock, 
and  trying  by  means  of  much  shouting  to  induce  the 
lazy  sheep  to  move  homewards.  A  strange-looking  lame 
dog  suddenly  appeared  on  the  scene,  as  if  it  had  dropped 
from  the  clouds,  and  limping  briskly  after  the  aston- 
ished and  frightened  sheep,  drove  them  straight  home 
and  into  the  fold;  and,  after  thus  earning  his  supper 
and  showing  what  stuf¥  was  in  him,  he  established  him- 
self at  the  house,  where  he  was  well  received.  He  was 
a  good-sized  animal,  with  a  very  long  body,  a  smooth 
black  coat,  tan  feet,  muzzle,  and  "spectacles,"  and  a  face 
of  extraordinary  length,  which  gave  him  a  profoundly- 


EARLIEST  MEMORIES 


9 


wise  baboon-like  expression.  One  of  his  hind  legs  had 
been  broken  or  otherwise  injured,  so  that  he  limped  and 
shuffled  along  in  a  peculiar  lopsided  fashion;  he  had  no 
tail,  and  his  ears  had  been  cropped  close  to  his  head: 
altogether  he  was  like  an  old  soldier  returned  from  the 
wars,  where  he  had  received  many  hard  knocks,  besides 
having  had  sundry  portions  of  his  anatomy  shot 
away. 

No  name  to  fit  this  singular  canine  visitor  could  be 
found,  although  he  responded  readily  enough  to  the 
word  Pechicho,  which  is  used  to  call  any  unnamed  pup 
by,  like  pussy  for  a  cat.  So  it  came  to  pass  that  this 
word  pechicho — equivalent  to  *'doggie"  in  English — 
stuck  to  him  for  only  name  until  the  end  of  the  chapter ; 
and  the  end  was  that,  after  spending  some  years  with 
us,  he  mysteriously  disappeared. 

He  very  soon  proved  to  us  that  he  understood  children 
as  well  as  sheep;  at  all  events  he  would  allow  them  to 
tease  and  pull  him  about  most  unmercifully,  and  actually 
appeared  to  enjoy  it.  Our  first  riding-lessons  were  taken 
on  his  back ;  but  old  Pechicho  eventually  made  one  mis- 
take, after  which  he  was  relieved  from  the  labour  of 
carrying  us.  When  I  was  about  four  years  old,  my  two 
elder  brothers,  in  the  character  of  riding-masters,  set 
me  on  his  back,  and,  in  order  to  test  my  capacity  for 
sticking  on  under  difficulties,  they  rushed  away,  calling 
him.  The  old  dog,  infected  with  the  pretended  excite- 
ment, bounded  after  them,  and  I  was  thrown  and  had 
my  leg  broken,  for,  as  the  poet  says — 

Children,  they  are  very  little, 
And  their  bones  are  very  brittle. 


10    FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 


Luckily  their  little  brittle  bones  quickly  solder,  and  it 
did  not  take  me  long  to  recover  from  the  effects  of  this 
mishap. 

No  doubt  my  canine  steed  was  as  much  troubled  as 
any  one  at  the  accident.  I  seem  to  see  the  wise  old 
fellow  now,  sitting  in  that  curious  one-sided  fashion 
he  had  acquired  so  as  to  rest  his  lame  leg,  his  mouth 
opened  to  a  kind  of  immense  smile,  and  his  brown  benev- 
olent eyes  regarding  us  with  just  such  an  expression 
as  one  sees  in  a  faithful  old  negress  nursing  a  flock  of 
troublesome  white  children — so  proud  and  happy  to  be 
in  charge  of  the  little  ones  of  a  superior  race! 

All  that  I  remember  of  my  early  life  at  this  place 
comes  between  the  ages  of  three  or  four  and  five;  a 
period  which,  to  the  eye  of  memory,  appears  like  a  wide 
plain  blurred  over  with  a  low-lying  mist,  with  here  and 
there  a  group  of  trees,  a  house,  a  hill,  or  other  large 
object,  standing  out  in  the  clear  air  with  marvellous 
distinctness.  The  picture  that  most  often  presents  it- 
self is  of  the  cattle  coming  home  in  the  evening;  the 
green  quiet  plain  extending  away  from  the  gate  to  the 
horizon;  the  western  sky  flushed  with  sunset  hues,  and 
the  herd  of  four  or  five  hundred  cattle  trotting  home- 
wards with  loud  lowings  and  bellowings,  raising  a  great 
cloud  of  dust  with  their  hoofs,  while  behind  gallop  the 
herdsmen  urging  them  on  with  wild  cries.  Another 
picture  is  of  my  mother  at  the  close  of  the  day,  when 
we  children,  after  our  supper  of  bread  and  milk,  join 
in  a  last  grand  frolic  on  the  green  before  the  house. 
I  see  her  sitting  out  of  doors  watching  our  sport  with 
a  smile,  her  book  lying  in  her  lap,  and  the  last  rays 
of  the  setting  sun  shining  on  her  face. 


EARLIEST  MEMORIES 


II 


When  I  think  of  her  I  remember  with  gratitude  that 
our  parents  seldom  or  never  punished  us,  and  never, 
unless  we  went  too  far  in  our  domestic  dissensions  or 
tricks,  even  chided  us.  This,  I  am  convinced,  is  the 
right  attitude  for  parents  to  observe,  modestly  to  admit 
that  nature  is  wiser  than  they  are,  and  to  let  their  little 
ones  follow,  as  far  as  possible,  the  bent  of  their  own 
minds,  or  whatever  it  is  they  have  in  place  of  minds. 
It  is  the  attitude  of  the  sensible  hen  towards  her  duck- 
lings, when  she  has  had  frequent  experience  of  their 
incongruous  ways,  and  is  satisfied  that  they  know  best 
what  is  good  for  them;  though,  of  course,  their  ways 
seem  peculiar  to  her,  and  she  can  never  entirely  sym- 
pathize with  their  fancy  for  going  into  water.  I  need 
not  be  told  that  the  hen  is  after  all  only  step-mother 
to  her  ducklings,  since  I  am  contending  that  the  civilized 
woman — the  artificial  product  of  our  self-imposed  con- 
ditions— cannot  have  the  same  relation  to  her  offspring 
as  the  uncivilized  woman  really  has  to  hers.  The  com- 
parison, therefore,  holds  good,  the  mother  with  us  being 
practically  step-mother  to  children  of  another  race;  and 
if  she  is  sensible,  and  amenable  to  nature's  teaching, 
she  will  attribute  their  seemingly  unsuitable  ways  and 
appetites  to  the  right  cause,  and  not  to  a  hypothetical 
perversity  or  inherent  depravity  of  heart,  about  which 
many  authors  will  have  spoken  to  her  in  many  books: 

But  though  they  wrote  it  all  by  rote 
They  did  not  write  it  right. 

Of  all  the  people  outside  of  the  domestic  circle  known 
to  me  in  those  days,  two  individuals  only  are  distinctly 
remembered.    They  were  certainly  painted  by  memory 


12    FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 


in  very  strong  unfading  colours,  so  that  now  they  seem 
to  stand  Hke  Hving  men  in  a  company  of  pale  phantom 
forms.  This  is  probably  due  to  the  circumstance  that 
they  were  considerably  more  grotesque  in  appearance 
than  the  others,  like  old  Pechicho  among  our  dogs — all 
now  forgotten  save  him. 

One  was  an  Englishman  named  Captain  Scott,  who 
used  to  visit  us  occasionally  for  a  week's  shooting  or 
fishing,  for  he  was  a  great  sportsman.  We  were  all 
extremely  fond  of  him,  for  he  was  one  of  those  simple 
men  that  love  and  sympathize  with  children;  besides 
that,  he  used  to  come  to  us  from  some  distant  wonder- 
ful place  where  sugar-plums  were  made,  and  to  our 
healthy  appetites,  unaccustomed  to  sweets  of  any  de- 
scription, these  things  tasted  like  an  angelic  kind  of  food. 
He  was  an  immense  man,  with  a  great  round  face  of  a 
purplish-red  colour,  like  the  sun  setting  in  glory,  and 
surrounded  with  a  fringe  of  silvery-white  hair  and 
whiskers,  standing  out  like  the  petals  round  the  disc 
of  a  sunflower.  It  was  always  a  great  time  when  Cap- 
tain Scott  arrived,  and  while  he  alighted  from  his  horse 
we  would  surround  him  with  loud  demonstrations  of 
welcome,  eager  for  the  treasures  which  made  his  pockets 
bulge  out  on  all  sides.  When  he  went  out  gunning  he 
always  remembered  to  shoot  a  hawk  or  some  strangely- 
painted  bird  for  us;  it  was  even  better  when  he  went 
fishing,  for  then  he  took  us  with  him,  and  while  he 
stood  motionless  on  the  bank,  rod  in  hand,  looking,  in 
the  light-blue  suit  he  always  wore,  like  a  vast  blue  pil- 
lar crowned  with  that  broad  red  face,  we  romped  on  the 
sward,  and  revelled  in  the  dank  fragrance  of  the  earth 
and  rushes. 


EARLIEST  MEMORIES 


13 


I  have  not  the  faintest  notion  of  who  Captain  Scott 
was,  or  of  what  he  was  ever  captain,  or  whether  resi- 
dence in  a  warm  cHmate  or  hard  drinking  had  dyed  his 
broad  countenance  with  that  deep  magenta  red,  nor  of 
how  and  when  he  finished  his  earthly  career;  for  when 
we  moved  away  the  huge  purple-faced  strange-looking 
man  dropped  for  ever  out  of  our  lives;  yet  in  my  mind 
how  beautiful  his  gigantic  image  looks!  And  to  this 
day  I  bless  his  memory  for  all  the  sweets  he  gave  me, 
in  a  land  where  sweets  were  scarce,  and  for  his  friend- 
liness to  me  when  I  was  a  very  small  boy. 

The  second  well-remembered  individual  was  also  only 
an  occasional  visitor  at  our  house,  and  was  known  all 
over  the  surrounding  country  as  the  Hermit,  for  his 
name  was  never  discovered.  He  was  perpetually  on 
the  move,  visiting  in  turn  every  house  within  a  radius 
of  forty  or  fifty  miles;  and  once  about  every  seven  or 
eight  weeks  he  called  on  us  to  receive  a  few  articles 
of  food — enough  for  the  day's  consumption.  Money 
he  always  refused  with  gestures  of  intense  disgust,  and 
he  would  also  decline  cooked  meat  and  broken  bread. 
When  hard  biscuits  were  given  him,  he  would  carefully 
examine  them,  and  if  one  was  found  chipped  or  cracked 
he  would  return  it,  pointing  out  the  defect,  and  ask  for 
a  sound  one  in  return.  He  had  a  small,  sun-parched 
face,  and  silvery  long  hair;  but  his  features  were  fine, 
his  teeth  white  and  even,  his  eyes  clear  grey  and  keen 
as  a  falcon's.  There  was  always  a  set  expression 
of  deep  mental  anguish  on  his  face,  intensified  with 
perhaps  a  touch  of  insanity,  which  made  it  painful  to 
look  at  him.  As  he  never  accepted  money  or  anything 
but  food,  he  of  course  made  his  own  garments — ^and 


14    FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

what  garments  they  were!  Many  years  ago  I  used  to 
see,  strolHng  about  St.  James's  Park,  a  huge  hairy  gen- 
tleman, with  a  bludgeon  in  his  hand,  and  clothed  with 
a  bear's  skin  to  which  the  head  and  paws  were  attached. 
It  may  be  that  this  eccentric  individual  is  remembered 
by  some  of  my  readers,  but  I  assure  them  that  he  was 
quite  a  St.  James's  Park  dandy  compared  with  my  her- 
mit. He  wore  a  pair  of  gigantic  shoes,  about  a  foot 
broad  at  the  toes,  made  out  of  thick  cow-hide  with  the 
hair  on;  and  on  his  head  was  a  tall  rimless  cow-hide 
hat  shaped  like  an  inverted  flower-pot.  His  bodily  cov- 
ering was,  however,  the  most  extraordinary:  the  outer 
garment,  if  garment  it  can  be  called,  resembled  a  very 
large  mattress  in  size  and  shape,  with  the  ticking  made 
of  innumerable  pieces  of  raw  hide  sewn  together.  It 
was  about  a  foot  in  thickness  and  stufifed  with  sticks, 
stones,  hard  lumps  of  clay,  rams'  horns,  bleached  bones, 
and  other  hard  heavy  objects;  it  was  fastened  round 
him  with  straps  of  hide,  and  reached  nearly  to  the 
ground.  The  figure  he  made  in  this  covering  was  most 
horribly  uncouth  and  grotesque,  and  his  periodical  visits 
used  to  throw  us  into  a  great  state  of  excitement.  And 
as  if  this  awful  burden  with  which  he  had  saddled  him- 
self— enough  to  have  crushed  down  any  two  ordinary 
men — was  not  sufficient,  he  had  weighted  the  heavy  stick 
used  to  support  his  steps  with  a  great  ball  at  the  end, 
also  with  a  large  circular  bell-shaped  object  surround- 
ing the  middle.  On  arriving  at  the  house,  where  the 
dogs  would  become  frantic  with  terror  and  rage  at 
sight  of  him,  he  would  stand  resting  himself  for  eight 
or  ten  minutes ;  then  in  a  strange  language,  which  might 
have  been  Hebrew  or  Sanscrit,  for  there  was  no  person 


EARLIEST  MEMORIES 


learned  enough  in  the  country  to  understand  it,  he  would 
make  a  long  speech  or  prayer  in  a  clear  ringing  voice, 
intoning  his  words  in  a  monotonous  sing-song.  His 
speech  done,  he  would  beg,  in  broken  Spanish,  for  the 
usual  charity;  and,  after  receiving  it,  he  would  com- 
mence another  address,  possibly  invoking  blessings  of 
all  kinds  on  the  donor,  and  lasting  an  unconscionable 
time.  Then,  bidding  a  ceremonious  farewell,  he  would 
take  his  departure. 

From  the  sound  of  certain  oft-recurring  expressions 
in  his  recitations  we  children  called  him  ''Con-stair 
Lo-vair'';  perhaps  some  clever  pundit  will  be  able  to 
tell  me  what  these  words  mean — the  only  fragment  saved 
of  the  hermit's  mysterious  language.  It  was  commonly 
reported  that  he  had  at  one  period  of  his  life  committed 
some  terrible  crime,  and  that,  pursued  by  the  phantoms 
of  remorse,  he  had  fled  to  this  distant  region,  where 
he  would  never  be  met  and  denounced  by  any  former 
companion,  and  had  adopted  his  singular  mode  of  life 
by  way  of  penance.  This  was,  of  course,  mere  con- 
jecture, for  nothing  could  be  extracted  from  him.  When 
closely  questioned  or  otherwise  interfered  with,  then 
old  Con-stair  Lo-vair  would  show  that  his  long  cruel 
penance  had  not  yet  banished  the  devil  from  his  heart. 
A  terrible  wrath  would  disfigure  his  countenance  and 
kindle  his  eyes  with  demoniac  fire;  and  in  sharp  ring- 
ing tones,  that  wounded  like  strokes,  he  would  pour 
forth  a  torrent  of  words  in  his  unknown  language, 
doubtless  invoking  every  imaginable  curse  on  his  tor- 
mentor. 

For  upwards  of  twenty  years  after  I  as  a  small  child 
made  his  acquaintance  he  continued  faithfully  pursuing 


i6    FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 


his  dreary  rounds,  exposed  to  cold  and  rain  in  winter 
and  to  the  more  trying  heats  of  summer;  until  at  last 
he  was  discovered  lying  dead  on  the  plain,  wasted  by 
old  age  and  famine  to  a  mere  skeleton,  and  even  in 
death  still  crushed  down  with  that  awful  burden  he  had 
carried  for  so  many  years.  Thus,  consistent  to  the  end, 
and  with  his  secret  untold  to  any  sympathetic  human 
soul,  perished  poor  old  Con-stair  Lo-vair,  the  strangest 
of  all  strange  beings  I  have  met  with  in  my  journey 
through  life. 


CHAPTER  II 
My  New  Home 

We  quit  our  old  home — A  winter  day  journey — Aspect  o( 
the  country — Our  new  home — A  prisoner  in  the  barn — 
The  plantation — A  paradise  of  rats — An  evening  scene 
— The  people  of  the  house — A  beggar  on  horseback — 
Mr.  Trigg  our  schoolmaster — His  double  nature — Imper- 
sonates an  old  woman — Reading  Dickens — Mr.  Trigg 
degenerates — Once  more  a  homeless  wanderer  on  the 
great  plain. 

The  incidents  and  impressions  recorded  in  the  pre- 
ceding chapter  relate,  as  I  have  said,  to  the  last  year  or 
two  of  my  five  years  of  life  in  the  place  of  my  birth. 
Further  back  my  memory  refuses  to  take  me.  Some 
wonderful  persons  go  back  to  their  second  or  even  their 
first  year;  I  can't,  and  could  only  tell  from  hearsay 
what  I  was  and  did  up  to  the  age  of  three.  According 
to  all  accounts,  the  clouds  of  glory  I  brought  into  the 
world — a  habit  of  smiling  at  everything  I  looked  at  and 
at  every  person  that  approached  me^ — ceased  to  be  vis- 
ibly trailed  at  about  that  age;  I  only  remember  my- 
self as  a  common  little  boy — just  a  little  wild  animal 
running  about  on  its  hind  legs,  amazingly  interested  in 
the  world  in  which  it  found  itself. 

Here,  then,  I  begin,  aged  five,  at  an  early  hour  on 
a  bright,  cold  morning  in  June — midwinter  in  that  south- 

17 


i8    FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 


ern  country  of  great  plains  or  pampas;  impatiently  wait- 
ing for  the  loading  and  harnessing  to  be  finished;  then 
the  being  lifted  to  the  top  with  the  other  little  ones — at 
that  time  we  were  five;  finally,  the  grand  moment  when 
the  start  was  actually  made  with  cries  and  much  noise 
of  stamping  and  snorting  of  horses  and  rattling  of 
chains.  I  remember  a  good  deal  of  that  long  journey, 
which  began  at  sianrise  and  ended  between  the  lights 
some  time  after  sunset;  for  it  was  my  very  first,  and  I 
was  going  out  into  the  unknown.  I  remember  how, 
at  the  foot  of  the  slope  at  the  top  of  which  the  old 
home  stood,  we  plunged  into  the  river,  and  there  was 
more  noise  and  shouting  and  excitement  until  the  strain- 
ing animals  brought  us  safely  out  on  the  other  side. 
Gazing  back,  the  low  roof  of  the  house  was  lost  to 
view  before  long,  but  the  trees — the  row  of  twenty- 
five  giant  ombu-trees  which  gave  the  place  its  name — 
were  visible,  blue  in  the  distance,  until  we  were  many 
miles  on  our  way. 

The  undulating  country  had  been  left  behind;  be- 
fore us  and  on  both  sides  the  land,  far  as  one  could 
see,  was  absolutely  flat,  everywhere  green  with  the  win- 
ter grass,  but  flowerless  at  that  season,  and  with  the 
gleam  of  water  over  the  whole  expanse.  It  had  been 
a  season  of  great  rains,  and  much  of  the  flat  country 
had  been  turned  into  shallow  lakes.  That  was  all  there 
was  to  see,  except  the  herds  of  cattle  and  horses  and 
an  occasional  horseman  galloping  over  the  plain,  and 
the  sight  at  long  distances  of  a  grove  or  small  plantation 
of  trees,  marking  the  site  of  an  estancia,  or  sheep  and 
cattle  farm,  these  groves  appearing  like  islands  on  the 
sea-like  flat  country.    At  length  this  monotonous  land- 


MY  NEW  HOME 


19 


scape  faded  and  vanished  quite  away,  and  the  lowing  of 
cattle  and  tremulous  bleating  of  sheep  died  out  of  hear- 
ing, so  that  the  last  leagues  were  a  blank  to  me,  and  I 
only  came  back  to  my  senses  when  it  was  dark  and  they 
lifted  me  down,  so  stiff  with  cold  and  drowsy  that  I 
could  hardly  stand  on  my  feet. 

Next  morning  I  found  myself  in  a  new  and  strange 
world.  The  house  to  my  ^childish  eyes  appeared  of 
vast  size :  it  consisted  of  a  long  range  of  rooms  on 
the  ground,  built  of  brick,  with  brick  floors  and  roof 
thatched  with  rushes.  The  rooms  at  one  end,  fronting 
the  road,  formed  a  store,  where  the  people  of  the  sur- 
rounding country  came  to  buy  and  sell,  and  what  they 
brought  to  sell  was  ''the  produce  of  the  country" — hides 
and  wool  and  tallow  in  bladders,  horsehair  in  sacks,  and 
native  cheeses.  In  return  they  could  purchase  anything 
they  wanted — knives,  spurs,  rings  for  horse-gear,  cloth- 
ing, yerba  mate  and  sugar;  tobacco,  castor-oil,  salt  and 
pepper,  and  oil  and  vinegar,  and  such  furniture  as  they 
required — iron  pots,  spits  for  roasting,  cane-chairs,  and 
coffins.  A  little  distance  from  the  house  were  the 
kitchen,  bakery,  dairy,  huge  barns  for  storing  the  prod- 
uce, and  wood-piles  big  as  houses,  the  wood  being  noth- 
ing but  stalks  of  the  cardoon  thistle  or  wild  artichoke, 
which  burns  like  paper,  so  that  immense  quantities  had 
to  be  collected  to  supply  fuel  for  a  large  establishment. 

Two  of  the  smallest  of  us  were  handed  over  to  the 
care  of  a  sharp  little  native  boy,  aged  about  nine  or 
ten  years,  who  was  told  to  take  us  out  of  the  way  and 
keep  us  amused.  The  first  place  he  took  us  to  was 
the  great  barn,  the  door  of  which  stood  open;  it  was 
nearly  empty  just  then,  and  was  the  biggest  interior  I 


20    FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 


had  ever  seen;  how  big  it  really  was  I  don't  know, 
but  it  seemed  to  me  about  as  big  as  Olympia  or  the 
Agricultural  Hall,  or  the  Crystal  Palace  would  be  to 
any  ordinary  little  London  boy.  No  sooner  were  we 
in  this  vast  place  than  we  saw  a  strange  and  startling 
thing — a  man,  sitting  or  crouching  on  the  floor,  his 
hands  before  him,  the  wrists  tied  together,  his  body 
bound  with  thongs  of  raw  hide  to  a  big  post  which 
stood  in  the  centre  of  the  floor  and  supported  the  beam 
of  the  loft  above.  He  was  a  young  man,  not  more  than 
twenty  perhaps,  with  black  hair  and  a  smooth,  pale,  sal- 
low face.  His  eyes  were  cast  down,  and  he  paid  no 
attention  to  us,  standing  there  staring  at  him,  and  he 
appeared  to  be  suffering  or  ill.  After  a  few  moments 
I  shrank  away  to  the  door  and  asked  our  conductor 
in  a  frightened  whisper  why  he  was  tied  up  to  a  post 
there.  Our  native  boy  seemed  to  be  quite  pleased  at 
the  effect  on  us,  and  answered  cheerfully  that  he  was 
a  murderer — he  had  committed  a  murder  somewhere, 
and  had  been  caught  last  evening,  but  as  it  was  too 
late  to  take  him  to  the  lock-up  at  the  village,  which 
was  a  long  distance  away,  they  had  brought  him  here 
as  the  most  convenient  place,  and  tied  him  in  the  barn 
to  keep  him  safe.  Later  on  they  would  come  and  take 
him  away. 

Murder  was  a  common  word  in  those  days,  but  I 
had  not  at  that  time  grasped  its  meaning;  I  had  seen 
no  murder  done,  nor  any  person  killed  in  a  fight;  I 
only  knew  that  it  must  be  something  wicked  and  hor- 
rible. Nevertheless,  the  shock  I  had  received  passed 
away  in  the  course  of  that  first  morning  in  a  new  world; 
but  what  I  had  seen  in  the  barn  was  not  forgotten: 


MY  NEW  HOME 


21 


the  image  of  that  young  man  tied  to  the  post,  his  bent 
head  and  downward  gaze,  and  ghastly  face  shaded  by 
lank  black  hair,  is  as  plain  to  me  now  as  if  I  had  seen 
him  but  yesterday. 

A  little  back  from  the  buildings  were  gardens  and 
several  acres  of  plantation — both  shade  and  fruit  trees. 
Viewed  from  the  outside,  it  all  looked  like  an  immense 
poplar  grove,  on  account  of  the  double  rows  of  tall 
Lombardy  poplar  trees  at  the  borders.  The  whole 
ground,  including  the  buildings,  was  surrounded  by  an 
immense  ditch  or  moat. 

Up  till  now  I  had  lived  without  trees,  with  the  ex- 
ception of  those  twenty-five  I  have  spoken  of,  which 
formed  a  landmark  for  all  the  country  round;  so  that 
this  great  number — hundreds  and  thousands — of  trees 
was  a  marvel  and  delight.  But  the  plantation  and  what 
it  was  to  me  will  form  the  subject  of  a  chapter  by  it- 
self. It  was  a  paradise  of  rats,  as  I  very  soon  dis- 
covered. Our  little  native  guide  and  instructor  was 
full  of  the  subject,  and  promised  to  let  us  see  the  rats 
with  our  own  eyes  as  soon  as  the  sun  went  down;  that 
would  finish  the  day  of  strange  sights  with  the  strangest 
of  all. 

Accordingly,  when  the  time  came  he  led  us  to  a  spot 
beyond  the  barns  and  wood-piles,  where  all  the  ofifal 
of  slaughtered  animals,  bones,  and  unconsumed  meats 
from  the  kitchen,  and  rubbish  from  a  wasteful,  dis- 
orderly establishment,  were  cast  out  each  day.  Here 
we  all  sat  down  in  a  row  on  a  log  among  the  dead 
weeds  on  the  border  of  the  evil-smelling  place,  and  he 
told  us  to  be  very  still  and  speak  no  word;  for,  said 
he,  unless  we  move  or  make  a  sound  the  rats  will  not 


22    FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 


heed  us ;  they  will  regard  us  as  so  many  wooden  images. 
And  so  it  proved,  for  very  soon  after  the  sun  had  gone 
down  we  began  to  see  rats  stealing  out  of  the  wood- 
pile and  from  the  dead  weeds  on  every  side,  all  con- 
verging to  that  one  spot  where  a  generous  table  was 
spread  for  them  and  for  the  brown  carrion  hawks 
that  came  by  day.  Big,  old,  grey  rats  with  long, 
scaly  tails,  others  smaller,  and  smaller  still,  the  least 
of  all  being  little  bigger  than  mice,  until  the  whole 
place  swarmed  with  them,  all  busily  hunting  for  food, 
feeding,  squealing,  fighting,  and  biting.  I  had  not 
known  that  the  whole  world  contained  so  many  rats 
as  I  now  saw  congregated  before  me. 

Suddenly  our  guide  jumped  up  and  loudly  clapped 
his  hands,  which  produced  a  curious  effect — a  short, 
sharp  little  shriek  of  terror  from  the  busy  multitude, 
followed  by  absolute  stillness,  every  rat  frozen  to  stone, 
which  lasted  for  a  second  or  two;  then  a  swift  scut- 
tling away  in  all  directions,  vanishing  with  a  rustling 
sound  through  the  dead  grass  and  wood. 

It  had  been  a  fine  spectacle,  and  we  enjoyed  it  amaz- 
ingly; it  raised  Mus  decumanus  to  a  beast  of  immense 
importance  in  my  mind.  Soon  he  became  even  more 
important  in  an  unpleasant  way  when  it  was  discov- 
ered that  rats  were  abundant  indoors  as  well  as  out. 
The  various  noises  they  made  at  night  were  terrify- 
ing; they  would  run  over  our  beds  and  sometimes  we 
would  wake  up  to  find  that  one  had  got  in  between 
the  sheets  and  was  trying  frantically  to  get  out.  Then 
we  would  yell,  and  half  the  house  would  be  roused 
and  imagine  some  dreadful  thing.    But  when  they 


MY  NEW  HOME 


23 


found  out  the  cause,  they  would  only  laugh  at  and  re- 
buke us  for  being  such  poor  little  cowards. 

But  what  an  astonishing  place  was  this  to  which  we 
had  come!  The  great  house  and  many  buildings  and 
the  people  in  it,  the^foss,  the  trees  that  enchanted  me, 
the  dirt  and  disorder,  vile  rats  and  fleas  and  pests  of 
all  sorts!  The  place  had  been  for  some  years  in  the 
hands  of  a  Spanish  or  native  family — indolent,  care- 
less, happy-go-lucky  people.  The  husband  and  wife 
were  never  in  harmony  or  agreement  about  anything  for 
five  minutes  together,  and  by  and  by  he  would  go  away 
to  the  capital  ''on  business,''  which  would  keep  him 
from  home  for  weeks,  and  even  months,  at  a  stretch. 
And  she,  with  three  light-headed,  grown-up  daughters, 
would  be  left  to  run  the  establishment  with  half-a-dozen 
hired  men  and  women  to  assist  her.  I  remember  her 
well,  as  she  stayed  on  a  few  days  in  order  to  hand 
over  the  place  to  us^ — an  excessively  fat,  inactive  woman, 
who  sat  most  of  the  day  in  an  easy-chair,  surrounded 
by  her  pets — lap-dogs,  Amazon  parrots,  and  several 
shrieking  parakeets. 

Before  many  days  she  left,  with  all  her  noisy  crowd 
of  dogs  and  birds  and  daughters,  and  of  the  events  of 
the  succeeding  days  and  weeks  nothing  remains  in 
memory  except  one  exceedingly  vivid  impression — my 
first  sight  of  a  beggar  on  horseback.  It  was  by  no 
means  an  uncommon  sight  in  those  days  when,  as  the 
gauchos  were  accustomed  to  say,  a  man  without  a  horse 
was  a  man  without  legs;  but  it  was  new  to  me  when 
one  morning  I  saw  a  tall  man  on  a  tall  horse  ride  up 
to  our  gate,  accompanied  by  a  boy  of  nine  or  ten  on 


24    FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

a  pony.  I  was  struck  with  the  man's  singular  appear- 
ance, sitting  upright  and  stifif  in  his  saddle,  staring 
straight  before  him.  He  had  long  grey  hair  and  beard, 
and  wore  a  tall  straw  hat  shaped  like  an  inverted  flower- 
pot, with  a  narrow  brim — a  form  of  .hat  which  had 
lately  gone  out  of  fashion  among  the  natives  but  was 
still  used  by  a  few.  Over  his  clothes  he  wore  a  red 
cloak  or  poncho,  and  heavy  iron  spurs  on  his  feet, 
which  were  cased  in  the  botas  de  potro,  or  long  stock- 
ings made  of  a  colt's  untanned  hide. 

Arrived  at  the  gate  he  shouted  Ave  Maria  purissima 
in  a  loud  voice,  then  proceeded  to  give  an  account  of 
himself,  informing  us  that  he  was  a  blind  man  and 
obliged  to  subsiist  on  the  charity  of  his  neighbours. 
They  in  their  turn,  he  said,  in  providing  him '  with 
all  he  required  were  only  doing  good  to  themselves, 
seeing  that  those  who  showed  the  greatest  compassion 
towards  their  afflicted  fellow-creatures  were  regarded 
with  special  favour  by  the  Powers  above. 

After  delivering  himself  of  all  this  and  much  more 
as  if  preaching  a  sermon,  he  was  assisted  from  his 
horse  and  led  by  the  hand  to  the  front  door,  after  which 
the  boy  drew  back  and  folding  his  arms  across  his 
breast  stared  haughtily  at  us  children  and  the  others 
who  had  congregated  at  the  spot.  Evidently  he  was 
proud  of  his  position  as  page  or  squire  or  groom  of 
the  important  person  in  the  tall  straw  hat,  red  cloak, 
and  iron  spurs,  who  galloped  about  the  land  collecting 
tribute  from  the  people  and  talking  loftily  about  the 
Powers  above. 

Asked  what  he  required  at  our  hands  the  beggar 


MY  NEW  HOME 


25 


replied  that  he  wanted  yerba  mate,  sugar,  bread,  and 
some  hard  biscuits,  also  cut  tobacco  and  paper  for 
cigarettes  and  some  leaf  tobacco  for  cigars.  When  all 
these  things  had  been  given  him,  he  was  asked  (not 
ironically)  if  there  was  anything  else  we  could  sup- 
ply him  with,  and  he  replied.  Yes,  he  was  still  in  want 
of  rice,  flour,  and  farina,  an  onion  or  two,  a  head  or 
two  of  garlic,  also  salt,  pepper,  and  pimento,  or  red 
pepper.  And  when  he  had  received  all  these  comes- 
tibles and  felt  them  safely  packed  in  his  saddle-bags, 
he  returned  thanks,  bade  good-bye  in  the  most  dignified 
manner,  and  was  led  back  by  the  haughty  little  boy  to 
his  tall  horse. 

We  had  been  settled  some  months  in  our  new  home, 
and  I  was  just  about  half  way  through  my  sixth  year, 
when  one  morning  at  breakfast  we  children  were  in- 
formed to  our  utter  dismay  that  we  could  no  longer 
be  permitted  to  run  absolutely  wild;  that  a  school- 
master had  been  engaged  who  would  live  in  the  house 
and  would  have  us  in  the  schoolroom  during  the  morn- 
ing and  part  of  the  afternoon. 

Our  hearts  were  heavy  in  us  that  day,  while  we 
waited  apprehensively  for  the  appearance  of  the  man 
who  would  exercise  such  a  tremendous  power  over  us 
and  would  stand  between  us  and  our  parents,  especially 
our  mother,  who  had  ever  been  our  shield  and  refuge 
from  all  pains  and  troubles.  Up  till  now  they  had  acted 
on  the  principle  that  children  were  best  left  to  them- 
selves, that  the  more  liberty  they  had  the  better  it  was 
for  them.  Now  it  almost  looked  as  if  they  were  turn- 
ing against  us:  but  we  knew  that  it  could  not  be  so — • 


26    FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 


we  knew  that  every  slightest  pain  or  grief  that  touched 
us  was  felt  more  keenly  by  our  mother  than  by  our- 
selves, and  we  were  compelled  to  believe  her  when  she 
told  us  that  she,  too,  lamented  the  restraint  that  would 
be  put  upon  us,  but  knew  that  it  would  be  for  our  ulti- 
mate good. 

And  on  that  very  afternoon  the  feared  man  arrived, 
Mr.  Trigg  by  name,  an  Englishman,  a  short,  stoutish, 
almost  fat  little  man,  with  grey  hair,  clean-shaved  sun- 
burnt face,  a  crooked  nose  which  had  been  broken  or 
was  born  so,  clever  mobile  mouth,  and  blue-grey  eyes 
with  a  humorous  twinkle  in  them  and  crow's-feet  at 
the  corners.  Only  to  us  youngsters,  as  we  soon  dis- 
covered, that  humorous  face  and  the  twinkling  eyes  were 
capable  of  a  terrible  sternness.  He  was  loved,  I  think, 
by  adults  generally,  and  regarded  with  feelings  of  an 
opposite  nature  by  children.  For  he  was  a  schoolmaster 
who  hated  and  despised  teaching  as  much  as  children 
in  the  wild  hated  to  be  taught.  He  followed  teaching 
because  all  work  was  excessively  irksome  to  him,  yet 
he  had  to  do  something  for  a  living,  and  this  was  the 
easiest  thing  he  could  find  to  do.  How  such  a  man 
ever  came  to  be  so  far  from  home  in  a  half-civilized 
country  was  a  mystery,  but  there  he  was,  a  bachelor  and 
homeless  man  after  twenty  or  thirty  years  on  the  pam- 
pas, with  little  or  no  money  in  his  pocket,  and  no  be- 
longings except  his  horse — he  never  owned  more  than 
one  at  a  time — and  its  cumbrous  native  saddle,  and  the 
saddle-bags  in  which  he  kept  his  wardrobe  and  what- 
ever he  possessed  besides.  He  didn't  own  a  box.  On  his 
horse,  with  his  saddle-bags  behind  him,  he  would  journey 
about  the  land,  visiting  all  the  English,  Scotch,  and 


MY  NEW  HOME 


Irish  settlers,  who  were  mostly  sheep-farmers,  but  re- 
ligiously avoiding  the  houses  of  the  natives.  With  the 
natives  he  could  not  affiliate,  and  not  properly  knowing 
and  incapable  of  understanding  them  he  regarded  them 
with  secret  dislike  and  suspicion.  And  by  and  by  he 
would  find  a  house  where  there  were  children  old 
enough  to  be  taught  their  letters,  and  Mr.  Trigg  would 
be  hired  by  the  month,  like  a  shepherd  or  cowherd,  to 
teach  them,  living  with  the  family.  He  would  go  on 
very  well  for  a  time,  his  failings  being  condoned  for 
the  sake  of  the  little  ones;  but  by  and  by  there  would 
be  a  falling-out,  and  Mr.  Trigg  would  saddle  his  horse, 
buckle  on  the  saddle-bags,  and  ride  forth  over  the  wide 
plain  in  quest  of  a  new  home.  With  us  he  made  an 
unusually  long  stay;  he  liked  good  living  and  comforts 
generally,  and  at  the  same  time  he  was  interested  in 
the  things  of  the  mind,  which  had  no  place  in  the  lives 
of  the  British  settlers  of  that  period ;  and  now  he  found 
himself  in  a  very  comfortable  house,  where  there  were 
books  to  read  and  people  to  converse  with  who  were 
not  quite  like  the  rude  sheep-  and  cattle-farmers  he  had 
been  accustomed  to  live  with.  He  was  on  his  best  be- 
haviour, and  no  doubt  strove  hard  and  not  unsuccess- 
fully to  get  the  better  of  his  weaknesses.  He  was  looked 
on  as  a  great  acquisition,  and  made  much  of ;  in  the 
school-room  he  was  a  tyrant,  and  having  been  forbidden 
to  punish  us  by  striking,  he  restrained  himself  when 
to  thrash  us  would  have  been  an  immense  relief  to  him. 
But  pinching  was  not  striking,  and  he  would  pinch  our 
ears  until  they  almost  bled.  It  was  a  poor  punishment 
and  gave  him  little  satisfaction,  but  it  had  to  serve. 


28    FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 


Out  of  school  his  temper  would  change  as  by  magic. 
He  was  then  the  life  of  the  house,  a  delightful  talker 
with  an  inexhaustible  fund  of  good  stories,  a  good  reader, 
mimic,  and  actor  as  well. 

One  afternoon  we  had  a  call  from  a  quaint  old  Scotch 
dame,  in  a  queer  dress,  sunbonnet,  and  spectacles,  who 
introduced  herself  as  the  wife  of  Sandy  Maclachlan, 
a  sheep-farmer  who  lived  about  twenty-five  miles  away. 
It  wasn't  right,  she  said,  that  such  near  neighbours 
should  not  know  one  another,  so  she  had  ridden  those 
few  leagues  to  find  out  what  we  were  like.  Established 
at  the  tea-table,  she  poured  out  a  torrent  of  talk  in 
broadest  Scotch,  in  her  high-pitched  cracked  old-woman's 
voice,  and  gave  us  an  intimate  domestic  history  of  all 
the  British  residents  of  the  district.  It  was  all  about 
what  delightful  people  they  were,  and  how  even  their 
little  weaknesses — their  love  of  the  bottle,  their  mean- 
nesses, their  greed  and  low  cunning — only  served  to 
make  them  more  charming.  Never  was  there  such  a 
funny  old  dame  or  one  more  given  to  gossip  and  scandal- 
mongering!  Then  she  took  herself  ofif,  and  presently 
we  children,  still  under  her  spell,  stole  out  to  watch  her 
departure  from  the  gate.  But  she  was  not  there — she 
had  vanished  unaccountably;  and  by  and  by  what  was 
our  astonishment  and  disgust  to  hear  that  the  old  Scotch 
body  was  none  other  than  our  own  Mr.  Trigg!  That 
our  needle-sharp  eyes,  concentrated  for  an  hour  on  her 
face,  had  failed  to  detect  the  master  who  was  so  pain- 
fully familiar  to  us  seemed  like  a  miracle. 

Mr.  Trigg  confessed  that  play-acting  was  one  of  the 
things  he  had  done  before  quitting  his  country;  but 


MY  NEW  HOME 


29 


it  was  only  one  of  a  dozen  or  twenty  vocations  which 
he  had  taken  up  at  various  times,  only  to  drop  them 
again  as  soon  as  he  made  the  discovery  that  they  one 
and  all  entailed  months  and  even  years  of  hard  work 
if  he  was  ever  to  fulfil  his  ambitious  desire  of  doing 
and  being  something  great  in  the  world.  As  a  reader 
he  certainly  was  great,  and  every  evening,  when  the 
evenings  were  long,  he  would  give  a  two  hours'  reading 
to  the  household.  Dickens  was  then  the  most  popular 
writer  in  the  world,  and  he  usually  read  Dickens,  to 
the  delight  of  his  listeners.  Here  he  could  display  his 
histrionic  qualities  to  the  full.  He  impersonated  every 
character  in  the  book,  endowing  him  with  voice,  ges- 
tures, manner,  and  expression  that  fitted  him  perfectly. 
It  was  more  like  a  play  than  a  reading. 

*'What  should  we  do  without  Mr.  Trigg?''  our  elders 
were  accustomed  to  say;  but  we  little  ones,  remember- 
ing that  it  would  not  be  the  beneficent  countenance  of 
Mr.  Pickwick  that  would  look  on  us  in  the  schoolroom 
on  the  following  morning,  only  wished  that  Mr.  Trigg 
was  far,  far  away. 

Perhaps  they  made  too  much  of  him:  at  all  events 
he  fell  into  the  habit  of  going  away  every  Saturday 
morning  and  not  returning  until  the  following  Monday. 
His  week-end  visit  was  always  to  some  English  or 
Scotch  neighbour,  a  sheep-farmer,  ten  or  fifteen  or 
twenty  miles  distant,  where  the  bottle  or  demi-john  of 
white  Brazilian  rum  was  always  on  the  table.  It  was 
the  British  exile's  only  substitute  for  his  dear  lost  whisky 
in  that  far  country.  At  home  there  was  only  tea  and 
cofifee  to  drink.    From  these  outings  he  would  return 


30    FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

on  Monday  morning,  quite  sober  and  almost  too  dig- 
nified in  manner,  but  with  inflamed  eyes  and  (in  the 
schoolroom)  the  temper  of  a  devil.  On  one  of  these 
occasions,  something — our  stupidity  perhaps,  or  an  ex- 
ceptionally bad  headache — tried  him  beyond  endurance, 
and  taking  down  his  revenqiie,  or  native  horse-whip 
made  of  raw  hide,  from  the  wall,  he  began  laying  about 
him  with  such  extraordinary  fury  that  the  room  was 
quickly  in  an  uproar.  Then  all  at  once  my  mother 
appeared  on  the  scene,  and  the  tempest  was  stilled, 
though  the  master,  with  the  whip  in  his  uplifted  hand, 
still  stood,  glaring  with  rage  at  us.  She  stood  silent  a 
moment  or  two,  her  face  very  white,  then  spoke :  ''Chil- 
dren, you  may  go  and  play  now.  School  is  over then, 
lest  the  full  purport  of  her  words  should  not  be  under- 
stood, she  added,  ''Your  schoolmaster  is  going  to  leave 
us." 

It  was  an  unspeakable  relief,  a  joyful  moment;  yet 
on  that  very  day,  and  on  the  next  before  he  rode  away, 
I,  even  I  who  had  been  unjustly  and  cruelly  struck  with 
a  horsewhip,  felt  my  little  heart  heavy  in  me  when  I 
saw  the  change  in  his  face^ — the  dark,  still,  brooding 
look,  and  knew  that  the  thought  of  his  fall  and  the 
loss  of  his  home  was  exceedingly  bitter  to  him.  Doubt- 
less my  mother  noticed  it,  too,  and  shed  a  few  com- 
passionate tears  for  the  poor  man,  once  more  homeless 
on  the  great  plain.  But  he  could  not  be  kept  after  that 
insane  outbreak.  To  strike  their  children  was  to  my 
parents  a  crime;  it  changed  their  nature  and  degraded 
them,  and  Mr.  Trigg  could  not  be  forgiven. 

Mr.  Trigg,  as  I  have  said  before,  was  a  long  time 


MY  NEW  HOME 


31 


with  us,  and  the  happy  deHverance  I  have  related  did 
not  occur  until  I  was  near  the  end  of  my  eighth  year. 
At  the  present  stage  of  my  story  I  am  not  yet  six,  and 
the  incident  related  in  the  following  chapter,  in  which 
Mr.  Trigg  figures,  occurred  when  I  was  within  a  couple 
of  months  of  completing  my  sixth  year. 


CHAPTER  III 
Death  of  an  Old  Dog 

The  old  dog  Caesar — His  powerful  personality — Last  days  and 
end — The  old  dog's  burial — The  fact  of  death  is  brought 
home  to  me — A  child's  mental  anguish — My  mother 
comforts  me — Limitations  of  the  child's  mind — Fear  of 
death — Witnessing  the  slaughter  of  cattle — A  man  in 
the  moat — Margarita,  the  nursery  maid — Her  beauty  and 
lovableness — Her  death — I  refuse  to  see  her  dead. 

When  recalling  the  impressions  and  experiences  of 
that  most  eventful  sixth  year,  the  one  incident  which 
looks  biggest  in  memory,  at  all  events  in  the  last  half 
of  that  year,  is  the  death  of  Caesar.  There  is  nothing 
in  the  past  I  can  remember  so  well :  it  was  indeed  the 
most  important  event  of  my  childhood — the  first  thing 
in  a  young  life  which  brought  the  eternal  note  of  sad- 
ness in. 

It  was  in  the  early  spring,  about  the  middle  of  August, 
and  I  can  even  remember  that  it  was  windy  weather  and 
bitterly  cold  for  the  time  of  year,  when  the  old  dog  was 
approaching  his  end. 

Caesar  was  an  old  valued  dog,  although  of  nO'  supe- 
rior breed :  he  was  just  an  ordinary  dog  of  the  country, 
short-haired,  with  long  legs  and  a  blunt  muzzle.  The 
ordinary  dog  or  native  cur  was  about  the  size  of  a  Scotch 
collie;  Caesar  was  quite  a  third  larger,  and  it  was  said 

32 


DEATH  OF  AN  OLD  DOG  33 

of  him  that  he  was  as  much  above  all  other  dogs  of  the 
house,  numbering  about  twelve  or  fourteen,  in  intelli- 
gence and  courage  as  in  size.  Naturally,  he  was  the 
leader  and  master  of  the  whole  pack,  and  when  he  got 
up  with  an  awful  growl,  baring  his  big  teeth,  and  hurled 
himself  on  the  others  to  chastise  them  for  quarrelling 
or  any  other  infringement  of  dog  law,  they  took  it  lying 
down.  He  was  a  black  dog,  now  in  his  old  age  sprin- 
kled with  white  hairs  all  over  his  body,  the  face  and  legs 
having  gone  quite  grey.  Caesar  in  a  rage,  or  on  guard 
at  night,  or  when  driving  cattle  in  from  the  plains,  was 
a  terrible  being;  with  us  children  he  was  mild-tempered 
and  patient,  allowing  us  to  ride  on  his  back,  just  like  old 
Pechicho  the  sheep-dog,  described  in  the  first  chapter. 
Now,  in  his  decline,  he  grew  irritable  and  surly,  and 
ceased  to  be  our  playmate.  The  last  two  or  three  months 
of  his  life  were  very  sad,  and  when  it  troubled  us  to 
see  him  so  gaunt,  with  his  big  ribs  protruding  from  his 
sides,  to  watch  his  twitchings  when  he  dozed,  groaning 
and  wheezing  the  while,  and  marked,  too,  how  painfully 
he  struggled  to  get  up  on  his  feet,  we  wanted  to  know 
why  it  was  so — why  we  could  not  give  him  some- 
thing to  make  him  well?  For  answer  they  would 
open  his  great  mouth  to  show  us  his  teeth — the 
big  blunt  canines  and  old  molars  worn  down  to  stumps. 
Old  age  was  what  ailed  him — he  was  thirteen  years  old, 
and  that  did  verily  seem  to  me  a  great  age,  for  I  was 
not  half  that,  yet  it  seemed  to  me  that  I  had  been  a 
very,  very  long  time  in  the  world. 

No  one  dreamed  of  such  a  thing  as  putting  an  end 
to  him — no  hint  of  such  a  thing  was  ever  spoken.  It 


34    FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

was  not  the  custom  in  that  country  to  shoot  an  old  dog 
because  he  was  past  work.  I  remember  his  last  day, 
and  how  often  we  came  to  look  at  him  and  tried  to 
comfort  him  with  warm  rugs  and  the  ofifer  of  food  and 
drink  where  he  was  lying  in  a  sheltered  place,  no  longer 
able  to  stand  up.  And  that  night  he  died :  we  knew 
it  as  soon  as  we  were  up  in  the  morning.  Then,  after 
breakfast,  during  which  we  had  been  very  solemn  and 
quiet,  our  schoolmaster  said:  '*We  must  bury  him  to- 
day— at  twelve  o'clock,  when  I  am  free,  will  be  the 
best  time;  the  boys  can  come  with  me,  and  old  John 
can  bring  his  spade."  This  announcement  greatly 
excited  us,  for  we  had  never  seen  a  dog  buried,  and 
had  never  even  heard  of  such  a  thing  having  ever  been 
done. 

About  noon  that  day  old  Caesar,  dead  and  stifif,  was 
taken  by  one  of  the  workmen  to  a  green  open  spot 
among  the  old  peach  trees,  where  his  grave  had  already 
been  dug.  We  followed  our  schoolmaster  and  watched 
while  the  body  was  lowered  and  the  red  earth  shovelled 
in.  The  grave  was  deep,  and  Mr.  Trigg  assisted  in 
filling  it,  puffing  very  much  over  the  task  and  stopping 
at  intervals  to  mop  his  face  with  his  coloured  cotton 
handkerchief. 

Then,  when  all  was  done,  while  we  were  still  stand- 
ing silently  around,  it  came  into  Mr.  Trigg's  mind  to 
improve  the  occasion.  Assuming  his  schoolroom  ex- 
pression he  looked  round  at  us  and  said  solemnly: 
'That's  the  end.  Every  dog  has  his  day  and  so  has 
every  man;  and  the  end  is  the  same  for  both.  We 
die  like  old  Caesar,  and  are  put  into  the  ground  and 
have  the  earth  shovelled  over  us." 


DEATH  OF  AN  OLD  DOG  35 

Now  these  simple,  common  words  aflfected  me  more 
than  any  other  words  I  have  heard  in  my  life.  They 
pierced  me  to  the  heart.  I  had  heard  something  ter- 
rible— too  terrible  to  think  of,  incredible — and  yet — 
and  yet  if  it  was  not  so,  why  had  he  said  it?  Was 
it  because  he  hated  us,  just  because  we  were  children 
and  he  had  to  teach  us  our  lessons,  and  wanted  to 
torture  us?  Alas!  no,  I  could  not  believe  that!  Was 
this,  then,  the  horrible  fate  that  awaited  us  all?  I  had 
heard  of  death — I  knew  there  was  such  a  thing;  I 
knew  that  all  animals  had  to  die,  also  that  some  men 
died.  For  how  could  any  one,  even  a  child  in  its  sixth 
year,  overlook  such  a  fact,  especially  in  the  country  of 
my  birth — a  land  of  battle,  murder,  and  sudden  death? 
I  had  not  forgotten  the  young  man  tied  to  the  post  in 
the  barn  who  had  killed  some  one,  and  would  perhaps, 
I  had  been  told,  be  killed  himself  as  a  punishment.  I 
knew,  in  fact,  that  there  was  good  and  evil  in  the 
world,  good  and  bad  men,  and  the  bad  men — mur- 
derers, thieves,  and  liars — would  all  have  to  die,  just 
like  animals;  but  that  there  was  any  Hfe  after  death  I 
did  not  know.  All  the  others,  myself  and  my  own 
people  included,  were  good  and  would  never  taste 
death.  How  it  came  about  that  I  had  got  no  further 
in  my  system  or  philosophy  of  life  I  cannot  say;  I  can 
only  suppose  that  my  mother  had  not  yet  begun  to 
give  me  instruction  in  such  matters  on  account  of  my 
tender  years,  or  else  that  she  had  done  so  and  that  I 
had  understood  it  in  my  own  way.  Yet,  as  I  dis- 
covered later,  she  was  a  religious  woman,  and  from 
infancy  I  had  been  taught  to  kneel  and  say  a  little 
prayer  each  evening:    ''Now  I  lay  me  down  to  sleep, 


36    FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

I  pray  the  Lord  my  soul  to  keep'';  but  who  the  Lord 
was  or  what  my  soul  was  I  had  no  idea.  It  was  just  a 
pretty  little  way  of  saying  in  rhyme  that  I  was  going 
to  bed.  My  world  was  a  purely  material  one,  and  a 
most  wonderful  world  it  was,  but  how  I  came  to  be  in 
it  I  didn't  know;  I  only  knew  (or  imagined)  that  I 
would  be  in  it  always,  seeing  new  and  strange  things 
every  day,  and  never,  never  get  tired  of  it.  In  litera- 
ture it  is  only  in  Vaughan,  Traherne,  and  other  mystics, 
that  I  find  any  adequate  expression  of  that  perpetual 
rapturous  delight  in  nature  and  my  own  existence  which 
I  experienced  at  that  period. 

And  now  these  never-to-be-forgotten  words  spoken 
over  the  grave  of  our  old  dog  had  come  to  awaken  me 
from  that  beautiful  dream  of  perpetual  joy! 

When  I  recall  this  event  I  am  less  astonished  at  my 
ignorance  than  at  the  intensity  of  the  feeling  I  experi- 
enced, the  terrible  darkness  it  brought  on  so  young  a 
mind.  The  child's  mind  we  think,  and  in  fact  know,  is 
like  that  of  the  lower  animals;  or  if  higher  than  the 
animal  mind,  it  is  not  so  high  as  that  of  the  simplest 
savage.  He  cannot  concentrate  his  thought — he  cannot 
think  at  all;  his  consciousness  is  in  its  dawn;  he  revels 
in  colours,  in  odours,  is  thrilled  by  touch  and  taste  and 
sound,  and  is  like  a  well-nourished  pup  or  kitten  at 
play  on  a  green  turf  in  the  sunshine.  This  being  so, 
one  would  have  thought  that  the  pain  of  the  revelation 
I  had  received  would  have  quickly  vanished — that  the 
vivid  impressions  of  external  things  would  have  blotted 
it  out  and  restored  the  harmony.  But  it  was  not  so; 
the  pain  continued  and  increased  until  it  was  no  longer 
to  be  borne;  then  I  sought  my  mother,  first  watching 


DEATH  OF  AN  OLD  DOG 


37 


until  she  was  alone  in  her  room.  Yet  when  with  her 
I  feared  to  speak  lest  with  a  word  she  should  confirm 
the  dreadful  tidings.  Looking  down,  she  all  at  once 
became  alarmed  at  the  sight  of  my  face,  and  began  to 
question  me.  Then,  struggling  against  my  tears,  I 
told  her  of  the  words  which  had  been  spoken  at  the 
old  dog's  burial,  and  asked  her  if  it  was  true,  if  I — if 
she — if  all  of  us  had  to  die  and  be  buried  in  the 
ground?  She  replied  that  it  was  not  wholly  true;  it 
was  only  true  in  a  way,  since  our  bodies  had  to  die  and 
be  buried  in  the  earth,  but  we  had  an  immortal  part 
which  could  not  die.  It  was  true  that  old  Caesar  had 
been  a  good,  faithful  dog,  and  felt  and  understood 
things  almost  like  a  human  being,  and  most  persons 
believed  that  when  a  dog  died  he  died  wholly  and  had 
no  after-life.  We  could  not  know  that;  some  very 
great,  good  men  had  thought  differently;  they  believed 
that  the  animals,  like  us,  would  live  again.  That  was 
also  her  belief — ^her  strong  hope;  but  we  could  not 
know  for  certain,  because  it  had  been  hidden  from  us. 
For  ourselves,  we  knew  that  we  could  not  really  die, 
because  God  Himself,  who  made  us  and  all  things,  had 
told  us  so,  and  His  promise  of  eternal  life  had  been 
handed  down  to  us  in  His  Book — in  the  Bible. 

To  all  this  and  much  more  I  listened  trembling,  with 
a  fearful  interest,  and  when  I  had  once  grasped  the 
idea  that  death  when  it  came  to  me,  as  it  must,  would 
leave  me  alive  after  all — that,  as  she  explained,  the  part 
of  me  that  really  mattered,  the  myself,  the  I  am  I, 
which  knew  and  considered  things,  would  never  perish, 
I  experienced  a  sudden  immense  relief.  When  I  went 
out  from  her  side  again  I  wanted  to  run  and  jump  for 


38    FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

joy  and  cleave  the  air  like  a  bird.  For  I  had  been  in 
prison  and  had  suffered  torture,  and  was  now  free  again 
— death  would  not  destroy  me! 

There  was  another  result  of  my  having  unburdened 
my  heart  to  my  mother.  She  had  been  startled  at  the 
poignancy  of  the  feeling  I  had  displayed,  and,  greatly 
blaming  herself  for  having  left  me  too  long  in  that 
ignorant  state,  began  to  give  me  religious  instruction. 
It  was  too  early,  since  at  that  age  it  was  not  possible 
for  me  to  rise  to  the  conception  of  an  immaterial  world. 
That  power,  I  imagine,  comes  later  to  the  normal  child 
at  the  age  of  ten  or  twelve.  To  tell  him  when  he  is 
five  or  six  or  seven  that  God  is  in  all  places  at  once  and 
sees  all  things,  only  produces  the  idea  of  a  wonderfully 
active  and  quick-sighted  person,  with  eyes  like  a  bird's, 
able  to  see  what  is  going  on  all  round.  A  short  time 
ago  I  read  an  anecdote  of  a  little  girl  who,  on  being 
put  to  bed  by  her  mother,  was  told  not  to  be  afraid  in 
the  dark,  since  God  would  be  there  to  watch  and  guard 
her  while  she  slept.  Then,  taking  the  candle,  the 
mother  went  downstairs;  but  presently  her  little  girl 
came  down  too,  in  her  nightdress,  and,  when  questioned, 
replied,  'T'm  going  to  stay  down  here  in  the  light, 
mummy,  and  you  can  go  up  to  my  room  and  sit  with 
God.''  My  own  idea  of  God  at  that  time  was  no 
higher.  I  would  lie  awake  thinking  of  him  there  in 
the  room,  puzzling  over  the  question  as  to  how  he 
could  attend  to  all  his  numerous  affairs  and  spend 
so  much  time  looking  after  me.  Lying  with  my  eyes 
open,  I  could  see  nothing  in  the  dark;  still,  I  knew  he 
was  there,  because  I  had  been  told  so,  and  this  troubled 
me.     But  no  sooner  would  I  close  my  eyes  than  his 


DEATH  OF  AN  OLD  DOG 


39 


image  would  appear  standing  at  a  distance  of  three  or 
four  feet  from  the  head  of  the  bed,  in  the  form  of  a 
column  five  feet  high  or  so  and  about  four  feet  in  cir- 
cumference. The  colour  was  blue,  but  varied  in  depth 
and  intensity ;  on  some  nights  it  was  sky-bkie,  but  usually 
of  a  deeper  shade,  a  pure,  soft,  beautiful  blue  like  that 
of  the  morning-glory  or  wild  geranium. 

It  would  not  surprise  me  to  find  that  many  persons 
have  some  such  material  image  or  presentment  of  the 
spiritual  entities  they  are  taught  to  believe  in  at  too 
tender  an  age.  Recently,  in  comparing  childish  mem- 
ories with  a  friend,  he  told  me  that  he  too  always  saw 
God  as  a  blue  object,  but  of  no  definite  shape. 

That  blue  column  haunted  me  at  night  for  many 
months;  I  don't  think  it  quite  vanished,  ceasing  to  be 
anything  but  a  memory,  until  I  was  seven — a  date  far 
ahead  of  where  we  are  now. 

To  return  to  that  second  blissful  revelation  which 
came  to  me  from  my  mother.  Happy  as  it  made  me 
to  know  that  death  would  not  put  an  end  to  my  exist- 
ence, my  state  after  the  first  joyful  relief  was  not  one 
of  perfect  happiness.  All  she  said  to  comfort  and 
make  me  brave  had  produced  its  effect — I  knew  now 
that  death  was  but  a  change  to  an  even  greater  bliss 
than  I  could  have  in  this  life.  How  could  I,  not  yet 
six,  think  otherwise  than  as  she  had  told  me  to  think,  or 
have  a  doubt?  A  mother  is  more  to  her  child  than 
any  other  being,  human  or  divine,  can  ever  be  to  him 
in  his  subsequent  life.  He  is  as  dependent  on  her  as 
any  fledgling  in  the  nest  on  its  parent — even  more, 
since  she  warms  his  callow  mind  or  soul  as  well  as 
body. 


40    FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

Notwithstanding  all  this,  the  fear  of  death  came 
back  to  me  in  a  little  while,  and  for  a  long  time 
disquieted  me,  especially  when  the  fact  of  death  was 
brought  sharply  before  me.  These  reminders  were 
only  too  frequent;  there  was  seldom  a  day  on  which 
I  did  not  see  something  killed.  When  the  killing 
was  instantaneous,  as  when  a  bird  was  shot  and  dropped 
dead  like  a  stone,  I  was  not  disturbed;  it  was  nothing 
but  a  strange,  exciting  spectacle,  but  failed  to  bring 
the  fact  of  death  home  to  me.  It  was  chiefly  when 
cattle  were  slaughtered  that  the  terror  returned  in  its 
full  force.  And  no  wonder!  The  native  manner  of 
killing  a  cow  or  bullock  at  that  time  was  peculiarly 
painful.  Occasionally  it  would  be  slaughtered  out  of 
sight  on  the  plain,  and  the  hide  and  flesh  brought  in 
by  the  men,  but,  as  a  rule,  the  beast  would  be  driven 
up  close  to  the  house  to  save  trouble.  One  of  the 
two  or  three  mounted  men  engaged  in  the  operation 
would  throw  his  lasso  over  the  horns,  and,  galloping 
oflF,  pull  the  rope  taut;  a  second  man  would  then 
drop  from  his  horse,  and  running  up  to  the  animal 
behind,  pluck  out  his  big  knife  and  with  two  lightning- 
quick  blows  sever  the  tendons  of  both  hind  legs. 
Instantly  the  beast  would  go  down  on  his  haunches, 
and  the  same  man,  knife  in  hand,  would  flit  round 
to  its  front  or  side,  and,  wj,tching  his  opportunity, 
presently  thrust  the  long  blade  into  its  throat  just 
above  the  chest,  driving  it  in  to  the  hilt  and  working 
it  round;  then  when  it  was  withdrawn  a  great  torrent 
of  blood  would  pour  out  from  the  tortured  beast,  still 
standing  on  his  fore-legs,  bellowing  all  the  time  with 
agony.    At   this  point  the   slaughterer  would  often 


DEATH  OF  AN  OLD  DOG  41 


leap  lightly  on  to  its  back,  stick  his  spurs  in  its  sides, 
and,  using  the  flat  of  his  long  knife  as  a  whip,  pretend 
to  be  riding  a  race,  yelling  with  fiendish  glee.  The 
bellowing  would  subside  into  deep,  awful,  sob-like 
sounds  and  chokings;  then  the  rider,  seeing  the 
animal  about  to  collapse,  would  fling  himself  nimbly  off. 
The  beast  down,  they  would  all  run  to  it,  and  throwing 
themselves  on  its  quivering  side  as  on  a  couch,  begin 
making  and  lighting  their  cigarettes. 

Slaughtering  a  cow  was  grand  sport  for  them,  and 
the  more  active  and  dangerous  the  animal,  the  more 
prolonged  the  fight,  the  better  they  liked  it;  they  were 
as  joyfully  excited  as  at  a  fight  with  knives  or  an  os- 
trich hunt.  To  me  it  was  an  awful  object-lesson,  and 
held  me  fascinated  with  horror.  For  this  was  death! 
The  crimson  torrents  of  blood,  the  deep,  human-like 
cries,  made  the  beast  appear  like  some  huge,  powerful 
man  caught  in  a  snare  by  small,  weak,  but  cunning  ad- 
versaries, who  tortured  him  for  their  delight  and  mocked 
him  in  his  agony. 

There  were  other  occurrences  about  that  time  to 
keep  the  thoughts  and  fear  of  death  alive.  One  day 
a  traveller  came  to  the  gate,  and,  after  unsaddling  his 
horse,  went  about  sixty  or  seventy  yards  away  to 
a  shady  spot,  where  he  sat  down  on  the  green  slope 
of  the  foss  to  cool  himself.  He  had  been  riding  many 
hours  in  a  burning  sun,  and  wanted  cooling.  He 
attracted  everybody's  attention  on  his  arrival  by  his 
appearance :  middle-aged,  with  good  features  and  curly 
brown  hair  and  beard,  but  huge — one  of  the  biggest 
men  I  had  ever  seen;  his  weight  could  not  have  been 
under  about  seventeen  stone.    Sitting  or  reclining  on 


42    FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

the  grass,  he  fell  asleep,  and  rolling  down  the  slope 
fell  with  a  tremendous  splash  into  the  water,  which 
was  about  six  feet  deep.  So  loud  was  the  splash  that 
it  was  heard  by  some  of  the  men  at  work  in  the  barn, 
and  running  out  to  ascertain  the  cause,  they  found  out 
what  had  happened.  The  man  had  gone  under  and 
did  not  rise;  with  a  good  deal  of  trouble  he  was 
raised  up  and  drawn  with  ropes  to  the  top  of  the 
bank. 

I  gazed  on  him  lying  motionless,  to  all  appearances 
stone  dead — the  huge,  ox-like  man  I  had  seen  less 
than  an  hour  ago,  when  he  had  excited  our  wonder 
at  his  great  size  and  strength,  and  now  still  in  death — 
dead  as  old  Caesar  under  the  ground  with  the  grass 
growing  over  him!  Meanwhile  the  men  who  had 
hauled  him  out  were  busy  with  him,  turning  him  over 
and  rubbing  his  body,  and  after  about  twelve  or  fifteen 
minutes  there  was  a  gasp  and  signs  of  returning  life, 
and  by  and  by  he  opened  his  eyes.  The  dead  man 
was  alive  again;  yet  the  shock  to  me  was  just  as  great 
and  the  effect  as  lasting  as  if  he  had  been  truly 
dead. 

Another  instance  which  will  bring  me  down  to  the 
end  of  my  sixth  year  and  the  conclusion  of  this 
sad  chapter.  At  this  time  we  had  a  girl  in  the 
house,  whose  sweet  face  is  one  of  a  little  group  of 
half  a  dozen  which  I  remember  most  vividly.  She 
was  a  niece  of  our  shepherd's  wife,  an  Argentine 
woman  married  to  an  Englishman,  and  came  to  us 
to  look  after  the  smaller  children.  She  was  nineteen 
years  old,  a  pale,  slim,  pretty  girl,  with  large  dark 
eyes  and  abundant  black  hair.     Margarita  had  the 


DEATH  OF  AN  OLD  DOG 


43 


sweetest  smile  imaginable,  the  softest  voice  and 
gentlest  manner,  and  was  so  much  loved  by  everybody 
in  the  house  that  she  was  like  one  of  the  family.  Un- 
happily she  was  consumptive,  and  after  a  few  months 
had  to  be  sent  back  to  her  aunt.  Their  little  place  was 
only  half  a  mile  or  so  from  the  house,  and  every  day 
my  mother  visited  her,  doing  all  that  was  possible  with 
such  skill  and  remedies  as  she  possessed  to  give  her 
ease,  and  providing  her  with  delicacies.  The  girl  did 
not  want  a  priest  to  visit  her  and  prepare  her  for  death; 
she  worshipped  her  mistress,  and  wished  to  be  of  the 
same  faith,  and  in  the  end  she  died  a  pervert  or  con- 
vert, according  to  this  or  that  person's  point  of 
view. 

The  day  after  her  death  we  children  were  taken 
to  see  our  beloved  Margarita  for  the  last  time;  but 
when  we  arrived  at  the  door,  and  the  others  following 
my  mother  went  in,  I  alone  hung  back.  They  came 
out  and  tried  to  persuade  me  to  enter,  even  to  pull 
me  in,  and  described  her  appearance  to  excite  my 
curiosity.  She  was  lying  all  in  white,  with  her  black 
hair  combed  out  and  loose,  on  her  white  bed,  with 
our  flowers  on  her  breast  and  at  her  sides,  and 
looked  very,  very  beautiful.  It  was  all  in  vain.  To 
look  on  Margarita  dead  was  more  than  I  could  bear. 
I  was  told  that  only  her  body  of  clay  was  dead — 
the  beautiful  body  we  had  come  to  say  good  bye  to; 
that  her  soul — she  herself,  our  loved  Margarita — was 
alive  and  happy,  far,  far  happier  than  any  person  could 
ever  be  on  this  earth;  that  when  her  end  was  near 
she  had  smiled  very  sweetly,  and  assured  them  that 
all  fear  of  death  had  left  her — that  God  was  taking 


44    FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

her  to  Himself.  Even  this  was  not  enough  to  make 
me  face  the  awful  sight  of  Margarita  dead;  the  very 
thought  of  it  was  an  intolerable  weight  on  my  heart; 
but  it  was  not  grief  that  gave  me  this  sensation,  much 
as  I  grieved;  it  was  solely  my  fear  of  death. 


CHAPTER  IV 


The  Plantation 

Living  with  trees — Winter  violets — The  house  is  made 
habitable — Red  willow— Scissor-tail  and  carrion-hawk 
— Lombardy  poplars — Black  acacia — Other  trees — The 
foss  or  moat — Rats — A  trial  of  strength  with  an  armadillo 
— ^Opossums  Kving  with  a  snake — Alfalfa  field  and  but- 
terflies— Cane  brake-^Weeds  and  fennel — Peach  trees 
in  blossom — Paroquets — Singing  of  a  field  finch — Con- 
cert-singing in  birds — Old  John — Cow-birds'  singing — 
Arrival  of  summer  migrants. 

I  REMEMBER — better  than  any  orchard,  grove,  or  wood 
I  have  ever  entered  or  seen,  do  I  remember  that  shady 
oasis  of  trees  at  my  new  home  on  the  illimitable  grassy 
plain.  Up  till  now  I  had  never  lived  with  trees  ex- 
cepting those  twenty-five  I  have  told  about  and  that 
other  one  which  was  called  el  arhol  because  it  was  the 
only  tree  of  its  kind  in  all  the  land.  Here  there  were 
hundreds,  thousands  of  trees,  and  to  my  childish  un- 
accustomed eyes  it  was  like  a  great  unexplored  forest. 
There  were  no  pines,  firs,  nor  eucalyptus  (unknown  in 
the  country  then),  nor  evergreens  of  any  kind;  the 
trees  being  all  deciduous  were  leafless  now  in  mid- 
winter, but  even  so  it  was  to  me  a  wonderful  experi- 
ence to  be  among  them,  to  feel  and  smell  their  rough 
moist  bark  stained  green  with  moss,  and  to  look  up  at 

45 


46    FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

the  blue  sky  through  the  network  of  interlacing  twigs. 
And  spring  with  foHage  and  blossom  would  be  with  us 
by  and  by,  in  a  month  or  two;  even  now  in  midwinter 
there  was  a  foretaste  of  it,  and  it  came  to  us  first  as 
a  delicious  fragrance  in  the  air  at  one  spot  beside  a 
row  of  old  Lombardy  poplars — an  odour  that  to  the 
child  is  like  wine  that  maketh  the  heart  glad  to  the 
adult.  Here  at  the  roots  of  the  poplars  there  was  a 
bed  or  carpet  of  round  leaves  which  we  knew  well,  and 
putting  the  clusters  apart  with  our  hands,  lo!  there 
were  the  violets  already  open — the  dim,  purple-blue, 
hidden  violets,  the  earliest,  sweetest,  of  all  flowers  the 
most  loved  by  children  in  that  land,  and  doubtless  in 
many  other  lands. 

There  was  more  than  time  enough  for  us  small 
children  to  feast  on  violets  and  run  wild  in  our  forest; 
since  for  several  weeks  we  were  encouraged  to  live  out 
of  doors  as  far  away  as  we  could  keep  from  the  house 
where  we  were  not  wanted.  For  just  then  great  altera- 
tions were  being  made  to  render  it  habitable :  new 
rooms  were  being  added  on  to  the  old  building, 
wooden  flooring  laid  over  the  old  bricks  and  tiles, 
and  the  half-rotten  thatch,  a  haunt  of  rats  and  the 
home  of  centipedes  and  of  many  other  hybernating 
creeping  things,  was  being  stripped  of¥  to  be  replaced 
by  a  clean  healthy  wooden  roof.  For  me  it  was  no 
hardship  to  be  sent  away  to  make  my  playground  in 
that  wooded  wonderland.  The  trees,  both  fruit  and 
shade,  were  of  many  kinds,  and  belonged  to  two 
widely-separated  periods.  The  first  were  the  old  trees 
planted  by  some  tree-loving  owner  a  century  or  more 
before  our  time,  and  the  second  the  others  which  had 


THE  PLANTATION 


47 


been  put  in  a  generation  or  two  later  to  fill  up  some 
gaps  and  vacant  places  and  for  the  sake  of  a  greater 
variety. 

The  biggest  of  the  old  trees,  which  I  shall  describe 
first,  was  a  red  willow  growing  by  itself  within  forty 
yards  of  the  house.  This  is  a  native  tree,  and  derives 
its  specific  name  riihra,  as  well  as  its  vernacular  name, 
from  the  reddish  colour  of  the  rough  bark.  It  grows 
to  a  great  size,  like  the  black  poplar,  but  has  long  nar- 
row leaves  like  those  of  the  weeping  willow.  In  sum- 
mer I  was  never  tired  of  watching  this  tree,  since  high 
up  in  one  of  the  branches,  which  in  those  days  seemed 
to  me  *'so  close  against  the  sky,"  a  scissor-tail  tyrant- 
bird  always  had  its  nest,  and  this  high  open  exposed 
nest  was  a  constant  attraction  to  the  common  brown 
carrion-hawk,  called  chimango — a  hawk  with  the  car- 
rion-crow's habit  of  perpetually  loitering  about  in  search 
of  eggs  and  fledglings. 

The  scissor-tail  is  one  of  the  most  courageous  of  that 
hawk-hating,  violent-tempered  tyrant-bird  family,  and 
every  time  a  chimango  appeared,  which  was  about  forty 
times  a  day,  he  would  sally  out  to  attack  him  in  mid- 
air with  amazing  fury.  The  marauder  driven  off,  he 
would  return  to  the  tree  to  utter  his  triumphant 
rattling  castanet-like  notes  and  (no  doubt)  to  receive 
the  congratulations  of  his  mate;  then  to  settle  down 
again  to  watch  the  sky  for  the  appearance  of  the  next 
chimango. 

A  second  red  willow  was  the  next  largest  tree  in  the 
plantation,  but  of  this  willow  I  shall  have  more  to  say 
in  a  later  chapter. 

The  tall  Lombardy  poplars  were  the  most  numerous 


48    FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

of  the  older  trees,  and  grew  in  double  rows,  forming 
walks  or  avenues,  on  three  sides  of  the  entire  enclosed 
ground.  There  was  also  a  cross-row  of  poplars  dividing 
the  gardens  and  buildings  from  the  plantation,  and  these 
were  the  favourite  nesting-trees  of  two  of  our  best- 
loved  birds — the  beautiful  little  goldfinch  or  Argentine 
siskin,  and  the  bird  called  firewood-gatherer  by  the  na- 
tives on  account  of  the  enormous  collection  of  sticks 
which  formed  the  nest. 

Between  the  border  poplar  walk  and  the  foss  out- 
side, there  grew  a  single  row  of  trees  of  a  very  dif- 
ferent kind — the  black  acacia,  a  rare  and  singular  tree, 
and  of  all  our  trees  this  one  made  the  strongest  and 
sharpest  impression  on  my  mind  as  well  as  flesh,  prick- 
ing its  image  in  me,  so  to  speak.  It  had  probably  been 
planted  originally  by  the  early  first  planter,  and,  I  im- 
agine, experimentally,  as  a  possible  improvement  on 
the  wide-spreading  disorderly  aloe,  a  favourite  with  the 
first  settlers;  but  it  is  a  wild  lawless  plant  and  had  re- 
fused to  make  a  proper  hedge.  Some  of  these  acacias 
had  remained  small  and  were  like  old  scraggy  bushes, 
some  were  dwarfish  trees,  while  others  had  sprung  up 
like  the  fabled  bean-stalk  and  were  as  tall  as  the  pop- 
lars that  grew  side  by  side  with  them.  These  tall  speci- 
mens had  slender  boles  and  threw  out  their  slender 
horizontal  branches  of  great  length  on  all  sides, 
from  the  roots  to  the  crown,  the  branches  and  the 
bole  itself  being  armed  with  thorns  two  to  four 
inches  long,  hard  as  iron,  black  or  chocolate-brown, 
polished  and  sharp  as  needles;  and  to  make  itself 
more  formidable  every  long  thorn  had  two  smaller 
thorns  growing  out  of  it  near  the  base,  so  that  it  was 


THE  PLANTATION 


49 


in  shape  like  a  round  tapering  dagger  with  a  cross- 
guard  to  the  handle.  It  was  a  terrible  tree  to  climb, 
yet,  when  a  little  older,  I  had  tO'  climb  it  a  thousand 
times,  since  there  were  certain  birds  which  would  make 
their  nests  in  it,  often  as  high  up  as  they  could,  and 
some  of  these  were  birds  that  laid  beautiful  eggs,  such 
as  those  of  the  Guira  cuckoo,  the  size  of  pullets'  eggs, 
of  the  purest  turquoise  blue  flecked  with  snowy  white. 

Among  our  old  or  ancient  trees  the  peach  was  the 
favourite  of  the  whole  house  on  account  of  the  fruit 
it  gave  us  in  February  and  March,  also  later,  in  April 
and  May,  when  what  we  called  our  winter  peach  rip- 
ened. Peach,  quince,  and  cherry  were  the  three  fa- 
vourite fruit-trees  in  the  colonial  times,  and  all  three 
were  found  in  some  of  the  quintas  or  orchards  of  the 
old  estancia  houses.  We  had  a  score  of  quince  trees, 
with  thick  gnarled  trunks  and  old  twisted  branches  like 
rams'  horns,  but  the  peach  trees  numbered  about  four 
to  five  hundred  and  grew  well  apart  from  one  another, 
and  were  certainly  the  largest  I  have  ever  seen.  Their 
size  was  equal  to  that  of  the  oldest  and  largest  cherry 
trees  one  sees  in  certain  favoured  spots  in  Southern 
England,  where  they  grow  not  in  close  formation  but 
wide  apart  with  ample  room  for  the  branches  to  spread 
on  all  sides. 

The  trees  planted  by  a  later  generation,  both  shade 
and  fruit,  were  more  varied.  The  most  abundant  was 
the  mulberry,  of  which  there  were  many  hundreds, 
mostly  in  rows,  forming  walks,  and  albeit  of  the  same 
species  as  our  English  mulberry  they  dififered  from  it 
in  the  great  size  and  roughness  of  the  leaves  and  in 
producing  fruit  of  a  much  smaller  size.    The  taste  of 


50    FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

the  fruit  was  also  less  luscious  and  it  was  rarely  eaten 
by  our  elders.  We  small  children  feasted  on  it,  but  it 
was  mostly  for  the  birds.  The  mulberry  was  looked 
on  as  a  shade,  not  a  fruit  tree,  and  the  other  two  most 
important  shade  trees,  in  number,  were  the  dcciciu 
blanca,  or  false  acacia,  and  the  paradise  tree  or  pride  of 
China.  Besides  these  there  was  a  row  of  eight  or  ten 
ailanthus  trees,  or  tree  of  heaven  as  it  is  sometimes 
called,  with  tall  white  smooth  trunk  crowned  with  a 
cluster  of  palm-like  foliage.  There  was  also  a  modern 
orchard,  containing  pear,  apple,  plum,  and  cherry 
trees. 

The  entire  plantation,  the  buildings  included, 
comprising  an  area  of  eight  or  nine  acres,  was  sur- 
rounded by  an  immense  ditch  or  foss  about  twelve  feet 
deep  and  twenty  to  thirty  feet  wide.  It  was  undoubt- 
edly very  old  and  had  grown  in  width  owing  to 
the  crumbling  away  of  the  earth  at  the  sides.  This 
in  time  would  have  filled  and  almost  obliterated  it,  but 
at  intervals  of  two  or  three  years,  at  a  time  when  it 
was  dry,  quantities  of  earth  were  dug  up  from  the  bot- 
tom and  thrown  on  the  mound  inside.  It  was  in  ap- 
pearance something  like  a  prehistoric  earthwork.  In 
winter  as  a  rule  it  became  full  of  water  and  was  a 
favourite  haunt,  especially  at  night,  of  flocks  of  teal, 
also  duck  of  a  few  other  kinds — widgeon,  pintail,  and 
shoveller.  In  summer  it  gradually  dried  up,  but  a  few 
pools  of  muddy  water  usually  remained  through  all 
the  hot  season  and  were  haunted  by  the  solitary  or 
summer  snipe,  one  of  the  many  species  of  sandpiper 
and  birds  of  that  family  which  bred  in  the  northern 
hemisphere  and  wintered    with  us  when  it  was  our 


THE  PLANTATION  51 

summer.  Once  the  water  had  gone  down  in  the  moat, 
long  grass  and  herbage  would  spring  up  and  flourish  on 
its  sloping  sides,  and  the  rats  and  other  small  beasties 
would  return  and  riddle  it  with  innumerable  burrows. 

The  rats  were  killed  down  from  time  to  time  with 
the  ''smoking  machine,''  which  pumped  the  fumes  of 
sulphur,  bad  tobacco,  and  other  deadly  substances  into 
their  holes  and  suffocated  them;  and  I  recall  two  curi- 
ous incidents  during  these  crusades.  One  day  I  was 
standing  on  the  mound  at  the  side  of  the  moat  or  foss 
some  forty  yards  from  where  the  men  were  at  work, 
when  an  armadillo  bolted  from  his  earth  and  running 
to  the  very  spot  where  I  was  standing  began  vigorously 
digging  to  escape  by  burying  himself  in  the  soil. 
Neither  men  nor  dogs  had  seen  him,  and  I  at  once  de- 
termined to  capture  him  unaided  by  any  one  and  im- 
agined it  would  prove  a  very  easy  task.  Accordingly 
I  laid  hold  of  his  black  bone-cased  tail  with  both  hands 
and  began  tugging  to  get  him  off  the  ground,  but 
couldn't  move  him.  He  went  on  digging  furiously,  get- 
ting deeper  and  deeper  into  the  earth,  and  I  soon  found 
that  instead  of  my  pulling  him  out  he  was  pulling  me 
in  after  him.  It  hurt  my  small-boy  pride  to  think  that 
an  animal  no  bigger  than  a  cat  was  going  to  beat 
me  in  a  trial  of  strength,  and  this  made  me  hold 
on  more  tenaciously  than  ever  and  tug  and  strain 
more  violently,  until  not  to  lose  him  I  had  to  go  flat 
down  on  the  ground.  But  it  was  all  for  nothing:  first 
my  hands,  then  my  aching  arms  were  carried  down 
into  the  earth,  and  I  was  forced  to  release  my  hold  and 
get  up  to  rid  myself  of  the  mould  he  had  been  throw- 


52    FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

ing  up  into  my  face  and  all  over  my  head,  neck,  and 
shoulders. 

In  the  other  case,  one  of  my  older  brothers  seeing 
the  dogs  sniffing  and  scratching  at  a  large  burrow,  took 
a  spade  and  dug  a  couple  of  feet  into  the  soil  and  found 
an  adult  black-and-white  opossum  with  eight  or  nine 
half-grown  young  lying  together  in  a  nest  of  dry  grass, 
and,  wonderful  to  tell,  a  large  venomous  snake  coiled 
up  amongst  them.  The  snake  was  the  dreaded  vivora  de 
la  cruz,  as  the  gauchos  call  it,  a  pit-viper  of  the  same 
family  as  the  fer-de-lance,  the  bush-master,  and  the 
rattlesnake.  It  was  about  three  feet  long,  very 
thick  in  proportion,  and  with  broad  head  and  blunt 
tail.  It  came  forth  hissing  and  striking  blindly  right 
and  left  when  the  dogs  pulled  the  opossums  out,  but 
was  killed  with  a  blow  of  the  spade  without  injuring 
the  dogs. 

This  was  the  first  serpent  with  a  cross  I  had  seen,  and 
the  sight  of  the  thick  blunt  body  of  a  greenish-grey 
colour  blotched  with  dull  black,  and  the  broad  flat 
head  with  its  stony-white  lidless  eyes,  gave  me  a  thrill 
of  horror.  In  after  years  I  became  familiar  with  it 
and  could  even  venture  to  pick  it  up  without  harm  to 
myself,  just  as  now  in  England  I  pick  up  the  less  dan- 
gerous adder  when  I  come  upon  one.  The  wonder  to 
us  was  that  this  extremely  irascible  and  venomous 
serpent  should  be  living  in  a  nest  with  a  large  family 
of  opossums,  for  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  the 
opossum  is  a  rapacious  and  an  exceedingly  savage- 
tempered  beast. 

This  then  was  the  world  in  which  I  moved  and  had 
my  being,  within  the  limits  of  the  old  rat-haunted  foss 


THE  PLANTATION 


53 


among  the  enchanted  trees.  But  it  was  not  the  trees 
only  that  made  it  so  fascinating,  it  had  open  spaces 
and  other  forms  of  vegetation  which  were  exceedingly- 
attractive  too. 

There  was  a  field  of  alfalfa  about  half  an  acre  in 
size,  which  flowered  three  times  a  year,  and  during  the 
flowering  time  it  drew  the  butterflies  from  all  the  sur- 
rounding plain  with  its  luscious  bean-like  fragrance, 
until  the  field  was  full  of  them,  red,  black,  yellow,  and 
white  butterflies,  fluttering  in  flocks  round  every  blue 
spike. 

Canes,  too,  in  a  large  patch  or  *'brake"  as  we  called 
it,  grew  at  another  spot;  a  graceful  plant  about  twenty- 
five  feet  high,  in  appearance  unlike  the  bamboo,  as  the 
long  pointed  leaves  were  of  a  glaucous  blue-green 
colour.  The  canes  were  valuable  to  us  as  they  served 
as  fishing-rods  when  we  were  old  enough  for  that 
sport,  and  were  also  used  as  lances  when  we  rode  forth 
to  engage  in  mimic  battles  on  the  plain.  But  they  also 
had  an  economic  value,  as  they  were  used  by  the  natives 
when  making  their  thatched  roofs  as  a  substitute  for 
the  bamboo  cane,  which  cost  much  more  as  it  had  to 
be  imported  from  other  countries.  Accordingly  at  the 
end  of  the  summer,  after  the  cane  had  flowered,  they 
were  all  cut  down,  stripped  of  their  leaves,  and  taken 
away  in  bundles,  and  we  were  then  deprived  till  the 
following  season  of  the  pleasure  of  hunting  for  the 
tallest  and  straightest  canes  to  cut  them  down  and  strip 
ofif  leaves  and  bark  to  make  beautiful  green  polished 
rods  for  our  sports. 

There  were  other  open  spaces  covered  with  a 
vegetation  almost  as  interesting  as  the  canes  and  the 


54    FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

trees:  this  was  where  what  were  called  "weeds"  were 
allowed  to  flourish.  Here  were  the  thorn-apple, 
chenopodium,  sow-thistle,  wild  mustard,  redweed, 
viper's  bugloss,  and  others,  both  native  and  introduced, 
in  dense  thickets  five  or  six  feet  high.  It  was  difficult 
to  push  one's  way  through  these  thickets,  and  one  was 
always  in  dread  of  treading  on  a  snake.  At  another 
spot  fennel  flourished  by  itself,  as  if  it  had  some  mys- 
terious power,  perhaps  its  peculiar  smell,  of  keeping 
other  plants  at  a  proper  distance.  It  formed  quite  a 
thicket,  and  grew  to  a  height  of  ten  or  twelve  feet. 
This  spot  was  a  favourite  haunt  of  mine,  as  it  was  in 
a  waste  place  at  the  furthest  point  from  the  house,  a 
wild  solitary  spot  where  I  could  spend  long  hours  by 
myself  watching  the  birds.  But  I  also  loved  the  fennel 
for  itself,  its  beautiful  green  feathery  foliage  and  the 
smell  of  it,  also  the  taste,  so  that  whenever  I  visited 
that  secluded  spot  I  would  rub  the  crushed  leaves  in 
my  palms  and  chew  the  small  twigs  for  their  peculiar 
fennel  flavour. 

Winter  made  a  great  change  in  the  plantation,  since 
it  not  only  stripped  the  trees  of  their  leaves  but  swept 
away  all  that  rank  herbage,  the  fennel  included,  al- 
lowing the  grass  to  grow  again.  The  large  luxuriantly- 
growing  annuals  also  disappeared  from  the  garden  and 
all  about  the  house,  the  big  four-o'clock  bushes  with 
deep  red  stems  and  wealth  of  crimson  blossoms,  and 
the  morning-glory  convolvulus  with  its  great  blue 
trumpets,  climbing  over  and  covering  every  available 
place  with  its  hop-like  mass  of  leaves  and  abundant 
blooms.  My  life  in  the  plantation  in  winter  was  a 
constant  watching  for  spring.    May,  June,  and  July 


THE  PLANTATION 


55 


were  the  leafless  months,  but  not  wholly  songless. 
On  any  genial  and  windless  day  of  sunshine  in  winter 
a  few  swallows  would  reappear,  nobody  could  guess 
from  where,  to  spend  the  bright  hours  wheeling  like 
house-martins  about  the  house,  revisiting  their  old 
breeding-holes  under  the  eaves,  and  uttering  their  lively 
little  rippling  songs,  as  of  water  running  in  a  pebbly 
stream.  When  the  sun  declined  they  would  vanish,  to 
be  seen  no  more  until  we  had  another  perfect  spring- 
like day. 

On  such  days  in  July  and  on  any  mild  misty 
morning,  standing  on  the  mound  within  the  moat  I 
would  listen  to  the  sounds  from  the  wide  open  plain, 
and  they  were  sounds  of  spring — the  constant  drum- 
ming and  rhythmic  cries  of  the  spur-wing  lapwings 
engaged  in  their  social  meetings  and  ''dances,"  and  the 
song  of  the  pipit  soaring  high  up  and  pouring  out  its 
thick  prolonged  strains  as  it  slowly  floated  downwards 
to  the  earth. 

In  August  the  peach  blossomed.  The  great  old 
trees  standing  wide  apart  on  their  grassy  carpet,  barely 
touching  each  other  with  the  tips  of  their  widest 
branches,  were  like  great  mound-shaped  clouds  of 
exquisite  rosy-pink  blossoms.  There  was  then  nothing 
in  the  universe  which  could  compare  in  loveliness  to 
that  spectacle.  I  was  a  worshipper  of  trees  at  this 
season,  and  I  remember  my  shocked  and  indignant 
feeling  when  one  day  a  flock  of  green  paroquets 
came  screaming  down  and  alighted  on  one  of  the  trees 
near  me.  This  paroquet  never  bred  in  our  plantation; 
they  were  occasional  visitors  from  their  home  in  an 
old  grove  about  nine  miles  away,  and  their  visits  were 


56    FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

always  a  great  pleasure  to  us.  On  this  occasion  I  was 
particularly  glad,  because  the  birds  had  elected  to 
settle  on  a  tree  close  to  where  I  was  standing.  But 
the  blossoms  thickly  covering  every  twig  annoyed  the 
parrots,  as  they  could  not  find  space  enough  to  grasp 
a  twig  without  grasping  its  flower  as  well;  so  what 
did  the  birds  do  in  their  impatience  but  begin  stripping 
the  blossoms  off  the  branches  on  which  they  were  perched 
with  their  sharp  beaks,  so  rapidly  that  the  flowers  came 
down  in  a  pink  shower,  and  in  this  way  in  half  a  min- 
ute every  bird  made  a  twig  bare  where  he  could  sit 
perched  at  ease.  There  were  millions  of  blossoms; 
only  one  here  and  there  would  ever  be  a  peach,  yet  it 
vexed  me  to  see  the  parrots  cut  them  off  in  that  heed- 
less way:  it  was  a  desecration,  a  crime  even  in  a 
bird. 

Even  now  when  I  recall  the  sight  of  those  old 
flowering  peach  trees,  with  trunks  as  thick  as  a  man's 
body,  and  the  huge  mounds  or  clouds  of  myriads  of 
roseate  blossoms  seen  against  the  blue  ethereal  sky,  I 
am  not  sure  that  I  have  seen  anything  in  my  life  more 
perfectly  beautiful.  Yet  this  great  beauty  was  but 
half  the  charm  I  found  in  these  trees:  the  other  half 
was  in  the  bird-music  that  issued  from  them.  It  was 
the  music  of  but  one  kind  of  bird,  a  small  greenish 
yellow  field  finch,  in  size  like  the  linnet  though  with 
a  longer  and  slimmer  body,  and  resembling  a  linnet 
too  in  its  general  habits.  Thus,  in  autumn  it  unites 
in  immense  flocks,  which  keep  together  during  the 
winter  months  and  sing  in  concert  and  do  not  break 
up  until  the  return  of  the  breeding  season.  In  a 
country  where  there  were  no  bird-catchers  or  human 


THE  PLANTATION 


57 


persecutors  of  small  birds,  the  flocks  of  this  finch, 
called  Misto  by  the  natives,  were  far  larger  than  any 
linnet  flocks  ever  seen  in  England.  The  flock  we  used 
to  have  about  our  plantation  numbered  many  thousands, 
and  you  would  see  them  like  a  cloud  wheeling  about  in 
the  air,  then  suddenly  dropping  and  vanishing  from 
sight  in  the  grass,  where  they  fed  on  small  seeds  and 
tender  leaves  and  buds.  On  going  to  the  spot  they 
would  rise  with  a  loud  humming  sound  of  innumerable 
wings,  and  begin  rushing  and  whirling  about  again,  chas- 
ing each  other  in  play  and  chirping,  and  presently  all 
would  drop  to  the  ground  again. 

In  August,  when  the  spring  begins  to  infect  their 
blood,  they  repair  to  the  trees  at  intervals  during  the 
day,  where  they  sit  perched  and  motionless  for  an  hour 
or  longer,  all  singing  together.  This  singing  time  was 
when  the  peach  trees  were  in  blossom,  and  it  was  in- 
variably in  the  peach  trees  they  settled  and  could  be 
seen,  the  little  yellow  birds  in  thousands  amid  the  mil- 
lions of  pink  blossoms,  pouring  out  their  wonderful 
music. 

One  of  the  most  delightful  bird  sounds  or  noises  to 
be  heard  in  England  is  the  concert-singing  of  a  flock 
of  several  hundreds,  and  sometimes  of  a  thousand  or 
more  linnets  in  September  and  October,  and  even 
later  in  the  year,  before  these  great  congregations 
have  been  broken  up  or  have  migrated.  The  effect 
produced  by  the  small  field  finch  of  the  pampas  was 
quite  different.  The  linnet  has  a  little  twittering 
song  with  breaks  in  it  and  small  chirping  sounds,  and 
when  a  great  multitude  of  birds  sing  together  the 
sound  at  a  distance  of  fifty  or  sixty  yards  is  as  of  a 


58    FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

high  wind  among  the  trees,  but  on  a  nearer  approach 
the  mass  of  sound  resolves  itself  into  a  tangle  of 
thousands  of  individual  sounds,  resembling  that  of  a 
great  concourse  of  starlings  at  roosting  time,  but  more 
musical  in  character.  It  is  as  if  hundreds  of  fairy  min- 
strels were  all  playing  on  stringed  and  wind  instruments 
of  various  forms,  every  one  intent  on  his  own  perform- 
ance without  regard  to  the  others. 

The  field  finch  does  not  twitter  or  chirp  and  has  no 
break  or  sudden  change  in  his  song,  which  is  com- 
posed of  a  series  of  long-drawn  notes,  the  first  some- 
what throaty  but  growing  clearer  and  brighter  towards 
the  end,  so  that  when  thousands  sing  together  it  is  as 
if  they  sang  in  perfect  unison,  the  effect  on  the  hear- 
ing being  like  that  on  the  sight  of  flowing  water  or  of 
rain  when  the  multitudinous  falling  drops  appear  as 
silvery-grey  lines  on  the  vision.  It  is  an  exceedingly 
beautiful  effect,  and  so  far  as  I  know  unique  among 
birds  that  have  the  habit  of  singing  in  large  com- 
panies. 

I  remember  that  we  had  a  carpenter  in  those  days, 
an  Englishman  named  John,  a  native  of  Cumberland, 
who  used  to  make  us  laugh  at  his  slow  heavy  way  when, 
after  asking  him  some  simple  question,  we  had  to  wait 
until  he  put  down  his  tools  and  stared  at  us  for  about 
twenty  seconds  before  replying.  One  of  my  elder 
brothers  had  dubbed  him  the  ''Cumberland  boor."  I 
remember  one  day  on  going  to  listen  to  the  choir 
of  finches  in  the  blossoming  orchard,  I  was  sur- 
prised to  see  John  standing  near  the  trees  doing 
nothing,  and  as  I  came  up  to  him  he  turned  towards 
me  with  a  look  which  astonished  me  on  his  dull  old 


THE  PLANTATION 


59 


face — that  look  which  perhaps  one  of  my  readers  has 
by  chance  seen  on  the  face  of  a  religious  mystic  in  a 
moment  of  exaltation.  ''Those  little  birds!  I  never 
heard  anything  like  it!"  he  exclaimed,  then  trudged  off 
to  his  work.  Like  most  Englishmen,  he  had,  no  doubt, 
a  vein  of  poetic  feeling  hidden  away  somewhere  in  his 
soul. 

We  also  had  the  other  kind  of  concert-singing  by 
another  species  in  the  plantation.  This  was  the  com- 
mon purple  cow-bird,  one  of  the  Troupial  family,  ex- 
clusively American,  but  supposed  to  have  affinities  with 
the  starlings  of  the  Old  World.  This  cow-bird  is  para- 
sitical (like  the  European  cuckoo)  in  its  breeding 
habits,  and  having  no  domestic  afifairs  of  its  own  to 
attend  to  it  lives  in  flocks  all  the  year  round,  leading 
an  idle  vagabond  life.  The  male  is  of  a  uniform  deep 
purple-black,  the  female  a  drab  or  mouse-colour.  The 
cow-birds  were  excessively  numerous  among  the  trees 
in  summer,  perpetually  hunting  for  nests  in  which  to 
deposit  their  eggs :  they  fed  on  the  ground  out  on  the 
plain  and  were  often  in  such  big  flocks  as  to  look  like 
a  huge  black  carpet  spread  out  on  the  green  sward.  On 
a  rainy  day  they  did  not  feed:  they  congregated  on  the 
trees  in  thousands  and  sang  by  the  hour.  Their  fa- 
vourite gathering-place  at  such  times  was  behind  the 
house,  where  the  trees  grew  pretty  thick  and  were 
sheltered  on  two  sides  by  the  black  acacias  and  double 
rows  of  Lombardy  poplars,  succeeded  by  double  rows 
of  large  mulberry  trees,  forming  walks,  and  these  by 
pear,  apple  and  cherry  trees.  From  whichever  side 
the  wind  blew  it  was  calm  here,  and  during  the 
heaviest  rain  the  birds  would  sit  here  in  their  thou- 


6o    FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

sands,  pouring  out  a  continuous  torrent  of  song, 
which  resembled  the  noise  produced  by  thousands  of 
starhngs  at  roosting-time,  but  was  louder  and  differed 
somewhat  in  character  owing  to  the  peculiar  song  of 
the  cow-bird,  which  begins  with  hollow  guttural 
sounds,  followed  by  a  burst  of  loud  clear  ringing 
notes. 

These  concert-singers,  the  little  green  and  yellow 
field  finch  and  the  purple  cow-bird,  were  with  us  all 
the  year  round,  with  many  others  which  it  would  take 
a  whole  chapter  to  tell  of.  When,  in  July  and  August, 
I  watched  for  the  coming  spring,  it  was  the  migrants, 
the  birds  that  came  annually  to  us  from  the  far  north, 
that  chiefly  attracted  me.  Before  their  arrival  the  bloom 
was  gone  from  the  peach  trees,  and  the  choir  of  count- 
less little  finches  broken  up  and  scattered  all  over  the 
plain.  Then  the  opening  leaves  were  watched,  and  after 
the  willows  the  first  and  best-loved  were  the  poplars. 
During  all  the  time  they  were  opening,  when  they 
were  still  a  yellowish-green  in  colour,  the  air  was  full 
of  the  fragrance,  but  not  satisfied  with  that  I  would 
crush  and  rub  the  new  small  leaves  in  my  hands  and 
on  my  face  to  get  the  delicious  balsamic  smell  in  fuller 
measure.  And  of  all  the  trees,  after  the  peach,  the 
poplars  appeared  to  feel  the  new  season  with  the 
greatest  intensity,  for  it  seemed  to  me  that  they 
felt  the  sunshine  even  as  I  did,  and  they  expressed 
it  in  their  fragrance  just  as  the  peach  and  other  trees 
did  in  their  flowers.  And  it  was  also  expressed  in 
the  new  sound  they  gave  out  to  the  wind.  The 
change  was  really  wonderful  when  the  rows  on  rows 
of  immensely  tall  trees  which  for  months  had  talked 


THE  PLANTATION  6i 


and  cried  in  that  strange  sibilant  language,  rising  to 
shrieks  when  a  gale  was  blowing,  now  gave  out  a 
larger  volume  of  sound,  more  continuous,  softer, 
deeper,  and  like  the  wash  of  the  sea  on  a  wide 
shore. 

The  other  trees  would  follow,  and  by  and  by  all  would 
be  in  full  foliage  once  more,  and  ready  to  receive  their 
strange  beautiful  guests  from  the  tropical  forests  in 
the  distant  north. 

The  most  striking  of  the  newcomers  was  the  small 
scarlet  tyrant-bird,  which  is  about  the  size  of  our  spotted 
flycatcher;  all  a  shining  scarlet  except  the  black  wings 
and  tail.  This  bird  had  a  delicate  bell-like  voice,  but 
it  was  the  scarlet  colour  shining  amid  the  green  foliage 
which  made  me  delight  in  it  above  all  other  birds. 
Yet  the  humming-bird,  which  arrived  at  the  same 
time,  was  wonderfully  beautiful  too ,  especially  when 
he  flew  close  to  your  face  and  remained  suspended 
motionless  on  mist-like  wings  for  a  few  moments, 
his  feathers  looking  and  glittering  like  minute  emerald 
scales. 

Then  came  other  tyrant-birds  and  the  loved  swallows 
— the  house-swallow,  which  resembles  the  English 
house-martin,  the  large  purple  martin,  the  Golodrma 
domestica,  and  the  brown  tree-martin.  Then,  too,  came 
the  yellow-billed  cuckoo — the  kowe-kowe  as  it  is  called 
from  its  cry.  Year  after  year  I  listened  for  its  deep 
mysterious  call,  which  sounded  like  gow-gow-gow-gouh 
gow,  in  late  September,  even  as  the  small  English  boy 
listens  for  the  call  of  his  cuckoo  in  April;  and  the 
human-like  character  of  the  sound,  together  with  the 
startlingly  impressive  way  in  which  it  was  enunciated. 


62    FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

always  produced  the  idea  that  it  was  something  more 
than  a  mere  bird  call  Later,  in  October  when  the 
weather  was  hot,  I  would  hunt  for  the  nest,  a  frail  plat- 
form made  of  a  few  sticks  with  four  or  five  oval  eggs 
like  those  of  the  turtledove  in  size  and  of  a  pale  green 
colour. 

There  were  other  summer  visitors,  but  I  must  not 
speak  of  them  as  this  chapter  contains  too  much  on 
that  subject.  My  feathered  friends  were  so  much  to 
me  that  I  am  constantly  tempted  to  make  this  sketch 
of  my  first  years  a  book  about  birds  and  little  else.  There 
remains,  too,  much  more  to  say  about  the  plantation, 
the  trees  and  their  ef¥ect  on  my  mind,  also  some  ad- 
ventures I  met  with,  some  with  birds  and  others  with 
snakes,  which  will  occupy  two  or  three  or  more  chap- 
ters later  on. 


CHAPTER  V 


Aspects  of  the  Plain 

Appearance  of  a  green  level  land — Cardoon  and  giant  thistles 
— Villages  of  the  Vizcacha,  a  large  burrowing  rodent — 
Groves  and  plantations  seen  like  islands  on  the  wide 
level  plains — Trees  planted  by  the  early  colonists — 
Decline  of  the  colonists  from  an  agricultural  to  a  pastoral 
people — Houses  as  part  of  the  landscape — Flesh  diet 
of  the  gauchos — Summer  change  in  the  aspect  of  the 
plain — The  water-hke  mirage — The  giant  thistle  and  a 
"thistle  year" — Fear  of  fires — An  incident  at  a  fire — 
The  pampero,  or  south-west  wind,  and  the  fall  of  the 
thistles — Thistle-down  and  thistle-seed  as  food  for 
animals — A  great  pampero  storm — Big  hailstones — 
Damage  caused  by  hail — ^Zango,  an  old  horse,  killed — 
Zango  and  his  master. 

As  a  small  boy  of  six  but  well  able  to  ride  bare-backed 
at  a  fast  gallop  without  falling  off,  I  invite  the  reader, 
mounted  too,  albeit  on  nothing  but  an  imaginary  animal, 
to  follow  me  a  league  or  so  from  the  gate  to  some  spot 
where  the  land  rises  to  a  couple  or  three  or  four  feet 
above  the  surrounding  level.  There,  sitting  on  our 
horses,  we  shall  command  a  wider  horizon  than  even  the 
tallest  man  would  have  standing  on  his  own  legs,  and  in 
this  way  get  a  better  idea  of  the  district  in  which  ten 
of  the  most  impressionable  years  of  my  life,  from  five 
to  fifteen,  were  spent. 

63 


64    FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

We  see  all  round  us  a  flat  land,  its  horizon  a  perfect 
ring  of  misty  blue  colour  where  the  crystal-blue  dome 
of  the  sky  rests  on  the  level  green  world.  Green  in 
late  autumn,  winter,  and  spring,  or  say  from  April  to 
November,  but  not  all  like  a  green  lawn  or  field :  there 
were  smooth  areas  where  sheep  had  pastured,  but  the 
surface  varied  greatly  and  was  mostly  more  or  less 
rough.  In  places  the  land  as  far  as  one  could  see  was 
covered  with  a  dense  growth  of  cardoon  thistles,  or 
wild  artichoke,  of  a  bluish  or  grey-green  colour,  while 
in  other  places  the  giant  thistle  flourished,  a  plant  with 
big  variegated  green  and  white  leaves,  and  standing  when 
in  flower  six  to  ten  feet  high. 

There  were  other  breaks  and  roughnesses  on  that 
flat  green  expanse  caused  by  the  vizcachas,  a  big  rodent 
the  size  of  a  hare,  a  mighty  burrower  in  the  earth. 
Vizcachas  swarmed  in  all  that  district  where  they  have 
now  practically  been  exterminated,  and  lived  in  villages, 
called  vizcacheras,  composed  of  thirty  or  forty  huge 
burrows — about  the  size  of  half  a  dozen  badgers'  earths 
grouped  together.  The  earth  thrown  out  of  these  dig- 
gings formed  a  mound,  and  being  bare  of  vegetation 
it  appeared  in  the  landscape  as  a  clay-coloured  spot  on 
the  green  surface.  Sitting  on  a  horse  one  could  count 
a  score  to  fifty  or  sixty  of  these  mounds  or  vizcacheras 
on  the  surrounding  plain. 

On  all  this  visible  earth  there  were  no  fences,  and  no 
trees  excepting  those  which  had  been  planted  at  the  old 
estancia  houses,  and  these  being  far  apart  the  groves 
and  plantations  looked  like  small  islands  of  trees,  or 
mounds,  blue  in  the  distance,  on  the  great  plain  or 
pampa.     They  were  mostly  shade  trees,  the  commonest 


ASPECTS  OF  THE  PLAIN 


65 


being  the  Lombardy  poplar,  which  of  all  trees  is  the 
easiest  one  to  grow  in  that  land.  And  these  trees  at 
the  estancias  or  cattle-ranches  were,  at  the  time  I  am 
writing  about,  almost  invariably  aged  and  in  many  in- 
stances in  an  advanced  state  of  decay.  It  is  interesting 
to  know  how  these  old  groves  and  plantations  ever  came 
into  existence  in  a  land  where  at  that  time  there  was 
practically  no  tree-planting. 

The  first  colonists  who  made  their  homes  in  this  vast 
vacant  space,  called  the  pampas,  came  from  a  land  where 
the  people  are  accustomed  to  sit  in  the  shade  of  trees, 
where  corn  and  wine  and  oil  are  supposed  to  be  neces- 
saries, and  where  there  is  salad  in  the  garden.  Natur- 
ally they  made  gardens  and  planted  trees,  both  for  shade 
and  fruit,  wherever  they  built  themselves  a  house  on 
the  pampas,  and  no  doubt  for  two  or  three  generations 
they  tried  to  live  as  people  live  in  Spain,  in  the  rural 
districts.  But  now  the  main  business  of  their  lives  was 
cattle-raising,  and  as  the  cattle  roamed  at  will  over  the 
vast  plains  and  were  more  like  wild  than  domestic  ani- 
mals, it  was  a  life  on  horseback.  They  could  no  longer 
dig  or  plough  the  earth  or  protect  their  crops  from 
insects  and  birds  and  their  own  animals.  They  gave 
up  their  oil  and  wine  and  bread  and  lived  on  flesh 
alone.  They  sat  in  the  shade  and  ate  the  fruit  of 
trees  planted  by  their  fathers  or  their  great-grandfathers 
until  the  trees  died  of  old  age,  or  were  blown  down 
or  killed  by  the  cattle,  and  there  was  no  more  shade 
and  fruit. 

It  thus  came  about  that  the  Spanish  colonists  on  the 
pampas  declined  from  the  state  of  an  agricultural  people 
to  that  of  an  exclusively  pastoral  and  hunting  one;  and 


66    FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

later,  when  the  Spanish  yoke,  as  it  was  called,  was 
shaken  off,  the  incessant  throat-cutting  wars  of  the  vari- 
ous factions,  which  were  like  the  wars  of  "crows  and 
pies,"  except  that  knives  were  used  instead  of  beaks, 
confirmed  and  sunk  them  deeper  in  their  wild  and  bar- 
barous manner  of  life. 

Thus,  too,  the  tree-clumps  on  the  pampas  were 
mostly  remains  of  a  vanished  past.  To  these  clumps 
or  plantations  we  shall  return  later  on  when  I  come  to 
describe  the  home  life  of  some  of  our  nearest  neigh- 
bours ;  here  the  houses  only,  with  or  without  trees  grow- 
ing about  them,  need  be  mentioned  as  parts  of  the  land- 
scape. The  houses  were  always  low  and  scarcely  visible 
at  a  distance  of  a  mile  and  a  half:  one  always  had  to 
stoop  on  entering  a  door.  They  were  built  of  burnt 
or  unburnt  brick,  more  often  clay  and  brushwood, 
and  thatched  with  sedges  or  bulrushes.  At  some 
of  the  better  houses  there  would  be  a  small  gar- 
den, a  few  yards  of  soil  protected  in  some  way 
from  the  poultry  and  animals,  in  which  a  few  flowers 
and  herbs  were  grown,  especially  parsley,  rue,  sage, 
tansy,  and  horehound.  But  there  was  no  other  culti- 
vation attempted,  and  no  vegetables  were  eaten  except 
onions  and  garlic,  which  were  bought  at  the  stores, 
with  bread,  rice,  mate  tea,  oil,  vinegar,  raisins,  cinna- 
mon, pepper,  cummin  seed,  and  whatever  else  they 
could  afford  to  season  their  meat-pies  or  give  a  flavour 
to  the  monotonous  diet  of  cow's  flesh  and  mutton  and 
pig.  Almost  the  only  game  eaten  was  ostrich,  arma- 
dillo, and  tinamou  (the  partridge  of  the  country),  which 
the  boys  could  catch  by  snaring  or  running  them  down. 
Wild  duck,  plover,  and  such  birds  they  rarely  or  never 


ASPECTS  OF  THE  PLAIN  67 


tasted,  as  they  could  not  shoot;  and  as  to  the  big 
rodent,  the  vizcacha,  which  swarmed  everywhere,  no 
gaucho  would  touch  its  flesh,  although  to  my  taste  it  was 
better  than  rabbit. 

The  summer  change  in  the  aspect  of  the  plain  would 
begin  in  November :  the  dead  dry  grass  would  take  on 
a  yellowish-brown  colour,  the  giant  thistle  a  dark  rust 
brown,  and  at  this  season,  from  November  to  February, 
the  grove  or  plantation  at  the  estancia  house,  with  its 
deep  fresh  unchanging  verdure  and  shade,  was  a  veri- 
table refuge  on  the  vast  flat  yellow  earth.  It  was  then, 
when  the  water-courses  were  gradually  drying  up  and 
the  thirsty  days  coming  to  flocks  and  herds,  that  the 
mocking  illusion  of  the  mirage  was  constantly  about 
us.  Quite  early  in  spring,  on  any  warm  cloudless  day, 
this  water-mirage  was  visible,  and  was  like  the  appear- 
ance on  a  hot  summer's  day  of  the  atmosphere  in 
England  when  the  air  near  the  surface  becomes  visible, 
when  one  sees  it  dancing  before  one's  eyes,  like  thin 
wavering  and  ascending  tongues  of  flame — crystal-clear 
flames  mixed  with  flames  of  a  faint  pearly  or  silver 
grey.  On  the  level  and  hotter  pampas  this  appearance 
is  intensified,  and  the  faintly  visible  wavering  flames 
change  to  an  appearance  of  lakelets  or  sheets  of  water 
looking  as  if  ruffled  by  the  wind  and  shining  like  molten 
silver  in  the  sun.  The  resemblance  to  water  is  increased 
when  there  are  groves  and  buildings  on  the  horizon, 
which  look  like  dark  blue  islands  or  banks  in  the  dis- 
tance, while  the  cattle  and  horses  feeding  not  far  from 
the  spectator  appear  to  be  wading  knee  or  belly  deep  , 
in  the  brilliant  water. 

The  aspect  of  the  plain  was  different  in  what  was 


68    FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

called  a  "thistle  year/'  when  the  giant  thistles,  which 
usually  occupied  definite  areas  or  grew  in  isolated 
patches,  suddenly  sprang  up  everywhere,  and  for  a  sea- 
son covered  most  of  the  land.  In  these  luxuriant  years 
the  plants  grew  as  thick  as  sedges  and  bulrushes  in  their 
beds,  and  were  taller  than  usual,  attaining  a  height  of 
about  ten  feet.  The  wonder  was  to  see  a  plant  which 
throws  out  leaves  as  large  as  those  of  the  rhubarb,  with 
its  stems  so  close  together  as  to  be  almost  touching. 
Standing  among  the  thistles  in  the  growing  season  one 
could  in  a  sense  hear  them  growing,  as  the  huge  leaves 
freed  themselves  with  a  jerk  from  a  cramped  position, 
producing  a  crackling  sound.  It  was  like  the  crackling 
sound  of  the  furze  seed-vessels  which  one  hears  in  June 
in  England,  only  much  louder. 

To  the  gaucho  who  lives  half  his  day  on  his  horse 
and  loves  his  freedom  as  much  as  a  wild  bird,  a  thistle 
year  was  a  hateful  period  of  restraint.  His  small,  low- 
roofed,  mud  house  was  then  too  like  a  cage  to  him,  as 
the  tall  thistles  hemmed  it  in  and  shut  out  the  view  on 
all  sides.  On  his  horse  he  was  compelled  to  keep  to 
the  narrow  cattle  track  and  to  draw  in  or  draw  up  his 
legs  to  keep  them  from  the  long  pricking  spines.  In 
those  distant  primitive  days  the  gaucho  if  a  poor  man 
was  usually  shod  with  nothing  but  a  pair  of  iron  spurs. 

By  the  end  of  November  the  thistles  would  be  dead, 
and  their  huge  hollow  stalks  as  dry  and  light  as  the 
shaft  of  a  bird's  feather — a  feather-shaft  twice  as  big 
round  as  a  broomstick  and  six  to  eight  feet  long.  The 
roots  were  not  only  dead  but  turned  to  dust  in  the 
ground,  so  that  one  could  push  a  stalk  from  its  place 
with  one  finger,  but  it  would  not  fall  since  it  was  held 


ASPECTS  OF  THE  PLAIN  69 


up  by  scores  of  other  sticks  all  round  it,  and  these  by 
hundreds  more,  and  the  hundreds  by  thousands  and  mil- 
lions. The  thistle  dead  was  just  as  great  a  nuisance  as 
the  thistle  living,  and  in  this  dead  dry  condition  they 
would  sometimes  stand  all  through  December  and  Jan- 
uary when  the  days  were  hottest  and  the  danger  of  fire 
was  ever  present  to  people's  minds.  At  any  moment  a 
careless  spark  from  a  cigarette  might  kindle  a  danger- 
ous blaze.  At  such  times  the  sight  of  smoke  in  the 
distance  would  cause  every  man  who  saw  it  to  mount 
his  horse  and  fly  to  the  danger-spot,  where  an  attempt 
would  be  made  to  stop  the  fire  by  making  a  broad  path 
in  the  thistles  some  fifty  to  a  hundred  yards  ahead  of 
it.  One  way  to  make  the  path  was  to  lasso  and  kill  a 
few  sheep  from  the  nearest  flock  and  drag  them  up  and 
down  at  a  gallop  through  the  dense  thistles  until  a 
broad  space  was  clear  where  the  flames  could  be  stamped 
and  beaten  out  with  horse-rugs.  But  sheep  to  be  used 
in  this  way  were  not  always  to  be  found  on  the  spot, 
and  even  when  a  broad  space  could  be  made,  if  a  hot 
north  wind  was  blowing  it  would  carry  showers  of  sparks 
and  burning  sticks  to  the  other  side  and  the  fire  would 
travel  on. 

I  remember  going  to  one  of  these  big  fires  when 
I  was  about  twelve  years  old.  It  broke  out  a  few 
miles  from  home  and  was  travelling  in  our  direction; 
I  saw  my  father  mount  and  dash  of¥,  but  it  took  me 
half  an  hour  or  more  to  catch  a  horse  for  myself,  so 
that  I  arrived  late  on  the  scene.  A  fresh  fire  had 
broken  out  a  quarter  of  a  mile  in  advance  of  the 
main  one,  where  most  of  the  men  were  fighting  the 
flames;  and  to  this  spot  I  went  first,  and  found  some 


70    FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

half  a  dozen  neighbours  who  had  just  arrived  on  the 
scene.  Before  we  started  operations  about  twenty  men 
from  the  main  fire  came  galloping  up  to  us.  They  had 
made  their  path,  but  seeing  this  new  fire  so  far  ahead, 
had  left  it  in  despair  after  an  hour's  hard  hot  work, 
and  had  flown  to  the  new  danger  spot.  As  they 
came  up  I  looked  in  wonder  at  one  who  rode  ahead, 
a  tall  black  man  in  his  shirt  sleeves  who  was  a 
stranger  to  me.  ''Who  is  this  'black  fellow,  I  won- 
der?" said  I  to  myself,  and  just  then  he  shouted 
to  me  in  English,  ''Hullo,  my  boy,  what  are  you 
doing  here?''  It  was  my  father;  an  hour's  fight- 
ing with  the  flames  in  a  cloud  of  black  ashes  in  that 
burning  sun  and  wind  had  made  him  look  like  a  pure- 
blooded  negro! 

During  December  and  January  when  this  desert 
world  of  thistles  dead  and  dry  as  tinder  continued  stand- 
ing, a  menace  and  danger,  the  one  desire  and  hope  of 
every  one  was  for  the  pampero — the  south-west  wind, 
which  in  hot  weather  is  apt  to  come  with  startling 
suddenness,  and  to  blow  with  extraordinary  violence. 
And  it  would  come  at  last,  usually  in  the  after- 
noon of  a  close  hot  day,  after  the  north  wind  had  been 
blowing  persistently  for  days  with  a  breath  as  from 
a  furnace.  At  last  the  hateful  wind  would  drop  and 
a  strange  gloom  that  was  not  from  any  cloud 
would  cover  the  sky;  and  by  and  by  a  cloud  would 
rise,  a  dull  dark  cloud  as  of  a  mountain  becoming 
visible  on  the  plain  at  an  enormous  distance.  In 
a  little  while  it  would  cover  half  the  sky,  and  there 
would  be  thunder  and  lightning  and  a  torrent  of  rain, 
and  at  the  same  moment  the  wind  would  strike  and 


ASPECTS  OF  THE  PLAIN  71 

roar  in  the  bent-down  trees  and  shake  the  house. 
And  in  an  hour  or  two  it  would  perhaps  be  all  over, 
and  next  morning  the  detested  thistles  would  be  gone, 
or  at  all  events  levelled  to  the  ground. 

After  such  a  storm  the  sense  of  relief  to  the  horse- 
man, now  able  to  mount  and  gallop  forth  in  any  direc- 
tion over  the  wide  plain  and  see  the  earth  once  more 
spread  out  for  miles  before  him,  was  like  that  of  a 
prisoner  released  from  his  cell,  or  of  the  sick  man,  when 
he  at  length  repairs  his  vigour  lost  and  breathes  and 
walks  again. 

To  this  day  it  gives  me  a  thrill,  or  perhaps  it  would 
be  safer  to  say  the  ghost  of  a  vanished  thrill,  when 
I  remember  the  relief  it  was  in  my  case,  albeit  I  was 
never  so  tied  to  a  horse,  so  parasitical,  as  the  gaucho, 
after  one  of  these  great  thistle-levelling  pampero  winds. 
It  was  a  rare  pleasure  to  ride  out  and  gallop  my  horse 
over  wide  brown  stretches  of  level  land,  to  hear  his 
hard  hoofs  crushing  the  hollow  desiccated  stalks  cover- 
ing the  earth  in  millions  like  the  bones  of  a  countless 
host  of  perished  foes.  It  was  a  queer  kind  of  joy,  a 
mixed  feeling  with  a  dash  of  gratified  revenge  to  give 
it  a  sharp  savour. 

After  all  this  abuse  of  the  giant  thistle,  the  Cardo 
asnal  of  the  natives  and  Carduus  mariana  of  the 
botanists,  it  may  sound  odd  to  say  that  a  ^'thistle 
year"  was  a  blessing  in  some  ways.  It  was  an 
anxious  year  on  account  of  the  fear  of  fire,  and  a 
season  of  great  apprehension  too  when  reports  of 
robberies  and  other  crimes  were  abroad  in  the  land, 
especially  for  the  poor  women  who  were  left  so  much 
alone  in  their  low-roofed  hovels,  shut  in  by  the  dense 


72    FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

prickly  growth.  But  a  thistle  year  was  called  a  fat 
year,  since  the  animals — cattle,  horses,  sheep,  and  even 
pigs — browsed  freely  on  the  huge  leaves  and  soft  sweet- 
ish-tasting stems,  and  were  in  excellent  condition.  The 
only  drawbacks  were  that  the  riding-horses  lost  strength 
as  they  gained  in  fat,  and  cow's  milk  didn't 
taste  nice. 

The  best  and  fattest  time  would  come  when  the 
hardening  plant  was  no  longer  fit  to  eat  and  the  flowers 
began  to  shed  their  seed.  Each  flower,  in  size  like 
a  small  coffee-cup,  would  open  out  in  a  white  mass 
and  shed  its  scores  of  silvery  balls,  and  these  when 
freed  of  heavy  seed  would  float  aloft  in  the  wind, 
and  the  whole  air  as  far  as  one  could  see  would 
be  filled  with  millions  and  myriads  of  floating  balls. 
The  fallen  seed  was  so  abundant  as  to  cover  the 
ground  under  the  dead  but  still  standing  plants.  It  is 
a  long,  slender  seed,  about  the  size  of  a  grain  of  Caro- 
lina rice,  of  a  greenish  or  bluish-grey  colour,  spotted 
with  black.  The  sheep  feasted  on  it,  using  their  mo- 
bile and  extensible  upper  lips  like  a  crumb-brush  to 
gather  it  into  their  mouths.  Horses  gathered  it  in  the 
same  way,  but  the  cattle  were  out  of  it,  either  because 
they  could  not  learn  the  trick,  or  because  their  lips 
and  tongues  cannot  be  used  to  gather  a  crumb-like 
food.  Pigs,  however,  flourished  on  it,  and  to  birds, 
domestic  and  wild,  it  was  even  more  than  to  the 
mammals. 

In  conclusion  of  this  chapter  I  will  return  for  a  page 
or  two  to  the  subject  of  the  pampero,  the  south-west 
wind  of  the  Argentine  pampas,  to  describe  the  greatest 


ASPECTS  OF  THE  PLAIN  73 

of  all  the  great  pampero  storms  I  have  witnessed.  This 
was  when  I  was  in  my  seventh  year. 

The  wind  blowing  from  this  quarter  is  not  like  the 
south-west  wind  of  the  North  Atlantic  and  Britain,  a 
warm  wind  laden  with  moisture  from  hot  tropical  seas 
— that  great  wind  which  Joseph  Conrad  in  his  Mirror 
of  the  Sea  has  personified  in  one  of  the  sublimest  pas- 
sages in  recent  literature.  It  is  an  excessively  violent 
wind,  as  all  mariners  know  who  have  encountered  it 
on  the  South  Atlantic  off  the  River  Plate,  but  it  is  cool 
and  dry,  although  it  frequently  comes  with  great  thun- 
der-clouds and  torrents  of  rain  and  hail.  The  rain  may 
last  half-an-hour  to  half-a-day,  but  when  over  the 
sky  is  without  a  vapour  and  a  spell  of  fine  weather  en- 
sues. 

It  was  in  sultry  summer  weather,  and  towards 
evening  all  of  us  boys  and  girls  went  out  for  a  ramble 
on  the  plain,  and  were  about  a  quarter  of  a  mile  from 
home  when  a  blackness  appeared  in  the  south-west, 
and  began  to  cover  the  sky  in  that  quarter  so  rapidly 
that,  taking  alarm,  we  started  homewards  as  fast  as  we 
could  run.  But  the  stupendous  slaty-black  darkness, 
mixed  with  yellow  clouds  of  dust,  gained  on  us,  and 
before  we  got  to  the  gate  the  terrified  screams  of  wild 
birds  reached  our  ears,  and  glancing  back  we  saw 
multitudes  of  gulls  and  plover  flying  madly  before 
the  storm,  trying  to  keep  ahead  of  it.  Then  a  swarm 
of  big  dragon-flies  came  like  a  cloud  over  us,  and  was 
gone  in  an  instant,  and  just  as  we  reached  the  gate 
the  first  big  drops  splashed  down  in  the  form  of 
liquid  mud.     We  had  hardly  got  indoors  before  the 


74    FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

tempest  broke  in  its  full  fury,  a  blackness  as  of  night, 
a  blended  uproar  of  thunder  and  wind,  blinding  flashes 
of  lightning,  and  torrents  of  rain.  Then  as  the  first 
thick  darkness  began  to  pass  away,  we  saw  that  the  air 
was  white  with  falling  hailstones  of  an  extraordinary 
size  and  appearance.  They  were  big  as  fowls'  eggs, 
but  not  egg-shaped:  they  were  flat,  and  about  half-an- 
inch  thick,  and  being  white,  looked  like  little  blocks  or 
bricklets  made  of  compressed  snow.  The  hail  continued 
falling  until  the  earth  was  white  with  them,  and  in  spite 
of  their  great  size  they  were  driven  by  the  furious  wind 
into  drifts  two  or  three  feet  deep  against  the  walls  of 
the  buildings. 

It  was  evening  and  growing  dark  when  the  storm 
ended,  but  the  light  next  morning  revealed  the  damage 
we  had  suf¥ered.  Pumpkins,  gourds,  and  water-melons 
were  cut  to  pieces,  and  most  of  the  vegetables,  includ- 
ing the  Indian  corn,  were  destroyed.  The  fruit  trees, 
too,  had  suf¥ered  greatly.  Forty  or  fifty  sheep  had 
been  killed  outright,  and  hundreds  more  were  so  much 
hurt  that  for  days  they  went  limping  about  or  appeared 
stupefied  from  blows  on  the  head.  Three  of  our  heifers 
were  dead,  and  one  horse — an  old  loved  riding-horse 
with  a  history,  old  Zango — the  whole  house  was  in 
grief  at  his  death!  He  belonged  originally  to  a 
cavalry  officer  who  had  an  extraordinary  af¥ection  for 
him — a  rare  thing  in  a  land  where  horseflesh  was  too 
cheap,  and  men  as  a  rule  careless  of  their  animals  and 
even  cruel.  The  officer  had  spent  years  in  the  Banda 
Oriental,  in  guerilla  warfare,  and  had  ridden  Zango  in 
every  fight  in  which  he  had  been  engaged.  Coming 
back  to  Buenos  Ayres  he  brought  the  old  horse  home 


ASPECTS  OF  THE  PLAIN  75 

with  him.  Two  or  three  years  later  he  came  to  my 
father,  whom  he  had  come  to  know  very  well,  and 
said  he  had  been  ordered  to  the  upper  provinces  and 
was  in  great  trouble  about  his  horse.  He  was  twenty 
years  old,  he  said,  and  no  longer  fit  to  be  ridden  in  a 
fight;  and  of  all  the  people  he  knew  there  was  but  one 
man  in  whose  care  he  wished  to  leave  his  horse.  I 
know,  he  said,  that  if  you  will  take  him  and  promise 
to  care  for  him  until  his  old  life  ends,  he  will  be  safe; 
and  I  should  be  happy  about  him — as  happy  as  I  can 
be  without  the  horse  I  have  loved  more  than  any  other 
being  on  earth.  My  father  consented,  and  had  kept  the 
old  horse  for  over  nine  years  when  he  was  killed  by 
the  hail.  He  was  a  well-shaped  dark  brown  animal, 
with  long  mane  and  tail,  but,  as  I  knew  him,  always 
lean  and  old-looking,  and  the  chief  use  he  was  put  to 
was  for  the  children  to  take  their  first  riding-lessons 
on  his  back. 

My  parents  had  already  experienced  one  great  sad- 
ness on  account  of  Zango  before  his  strange  death. 
For  years  they  had  looked  for  a  letter,  a  message,  from 
the  absent  officer,  and  had  often  pictured  his  return 
and  joy  at  finding  alive  still  and  embracing  his  beloved 
old  friend  again.  But  he  never  returned,  and  no  mes- 
sage came  and  no  news  could  be  heard  of  him,  and  it 
was  at  last  concluded  that  he  had  lost  his  life  in  that 
distant  part  of  the  country,  where  there  had  been  much 
fighting. 

To  return  to  the  hailstones.  The  greatest  destruc- 
tion had  fallen  on  the  wild  birds.  Before  the  storm 
immense  numbers  of  golden  plover  had  appeared  and 
were  in  large  flocks  on  the  plain.    One  of  our  native 


76    FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

boys  rode  in  and  offered  to  get  a  sackful  of  plover  for 
the  table,  and  getting  the  sack  he  took  me  up  on  his 
horse  behind  him.  A  mile  or  so  from  home  we  came 
upon  scores  of  dead  plover  lying  together  where  they 
had  been  in  close  flocks,  but  my  companion  would  not 
pick  up  a  dead  bird.  There  were  others  running  about 
with  one  wing  broken,  and  these  he  went  after,  leaving 
me  to  hold  his  horse,  and  catching  them  would  wring 
their  necks  and  drop  them  in  the  sack.  When  he  had 
collected  two  or  three  dozen  he  remounted  and  we  rode 
back. 

Later  that  morning  we  heard  of  one  human  being,  a 
boy  of  six,  in  one  of  our  poor  neighbours'  houses,  who 
had  lost  his  life  in  a  curious  way.  He  was  standing 
in  the  middle  of  the  room,  gazing  out  at  the  falling 
hail,  when  a  hailstone,  cutting  through  the  thatched 
roof,  struck  him  on  the  head  and  killed  him  instantly. 


CHAPTER  VI 


Some  Bird  Adventures 

Visit  to  a  river  on  the  pampas — -A  first  long  walk — Water- 
fowl— My  first  sight  of  flamingoes — A  great  dove  visi- 
tation— Strange  tameness  of  the  birds — Vain  attempts 
at  putting  salt  on  their  tails — An  ethical  question: 
When  is  a  lie  not  a  lie? — The  carancho,  a  vulture-eagle 
— Our  pair  of  caranchos — Their  nest  in  a  peach  tree — 
I  am  ambitious  to  take  their  eggs — The  birds'  crimes — 
I  am  driven  off  by  the  birds — The  nest  pulled  down. 

Just  before  my  riding  days  began  in  real  earnest,  when 
I  was  not  yet  quite  confident  enough  to  gallop  oflf  alone 
for  miles  to  see  the  world  for  myself,  I  had  my  first 
long  walk  on  the  plain.  One  of  my  elder  brothers 
invited  me  to  accompany  him  to  a  water-course,  one  of 
the  slow-flowing  shallow  marshy  rivers  of  the  pampas 
which  was  but  two  miles  from  home.  The  thought  of 
the  half-wild  cattle  we  would  meet  terrified  me,  but  he 
was  anxious  for  my  company  that  day  and  assured  me 
that  he  could  see  no  herd  in  that  direction  and  he  would 
be  careful  to  give  a  wide  berth  to  anything  with  horns 
we  might  come  upon.  Then  I  joyfully  consented  and 
we  set  out,  three  of  us,  to  survey  the  wonders  of  a 
great  stream  of  running  water,  where  bulrushes  grew 
and  large  wild  birds,  never  seen  by  us  at  home,  would 

77 


78    FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

be  found.  I  had  had  a  ghmpse  of  the  river  before, 
as,  when  driving  to  visit  a  neighbour,  we  had  crossed 
it  at  one  of  the  fords  and  I  had  wished  to  get  down 
and  run  on  its  moist  green  low  banks,  and  now  that 
desire  would  be  gratified.  It  was  for  me  a  tremen- 
dously long  walk,  as  we  had  to  take  many  a  turn  to 
avoid  the  patches  of  cardoon  and  giant  thistles,  and 
by  and  by  we  came  to  low  ground  where  the  grass  was 
almost  waist-high  and  full  of  flowers.  It  was  all  like 
an  English  meadow  in  June,  when  every  grass  and 
every  herb  is  in  flower,  beautiful  and  fragrant,  but  tir- 
ing to  a  boy  six  years  old  to  walk  through.  At  last 
we  came  out  to  a  smooth  grass  turf,  and  in  a  little 
while  were  by  the  stream,  which  had  overflowed  its 
banks  owing  to  recent  heavy  rains  and  was  now  about 
fifty  yards  wide.  An  astonishing  number  of  birds  were 
visible — chiefly  wild  duck,  a  few  swans,  and  many 
waders — ibises,  herons,  spoonbills,  and  others,  but  the 
most  wonderful  of  all  were  three  immensely  tall  white- 
and-rose-coloured  birds,  wading  solemnly  in  a  row  a 
yard  or  so  apart  from  one  another  some  twenty  yards 
out  from  the  bank.  I  was  amazed  and  enchanted  at 
the  sight,  and  my  delight  was  intensified  when  the  lead- 
ing bird  stood  still  and,  raising  his  head  and  long  neck 
aloft,  opened  and  shook  his  wings.  For  the  wings  when 
open  were  of  a  glorious  crimson  colour,  and  the  bird 
was  to  me  the  most  angel-like  creature  on  earth. 

What  were  these  wonderful  birds?  I  asked  of  my 
brothers,  but  they  could  not  tell  me.  They  said  they 
had  never  seen  birds  like  them  before,  and  later  I  found 
that  the  flamingo  was  not  known  in  our  neighbourhood 
as  the  water-courses  were  not  large  enough  for  it,  but 


SOME  BIRD  ADVENTURES  79 

that  it  could  be  seen  in  flocks  at  a  lake  less  than  a  day's 
journey  from  our  home. 

It  was  not  for  several  years  that  I  had  an  opportunity 
of  seeing  the  bird  again;  later  I  have  seen  it  scores 
and  hundreds  of  times,  at  rest  or  flying,  at  all  times  of 
the  day  and  in  all  states  of  the  atmosphere,  in  all  its 
most  beautiful  aspects,  as  when  at  sunset  or  in  the  early 
morning  it  stands  motionless  in  the  still  water  with  its 
clear  image  reflected  below;  or  when  seen  flying  in 
flocks — seen  from  some  high  bank  beneath  one — mov- 
ing low  over  the  blue  water  in  a  long  crimson  line  or 
half  moon,  the  birds  at  equal  distances  apart,  their  wing- 
tips  all  but  touching;  but  the  delight  in  these  spectacles 
has  never  equalled  in  degree  that  which  I  experienced 
on  this  occasion  when  I  was  six  years  old. 

The  next  little  bird  adventure  to  be  told  exhibits  me 
more  in  the  character  of  an  innocent  and  exceedingly 
credulous  baby  of  three  than  of  a  field  naturalist  of  six 
with  a  considerable  experience  of  wild  birds. 

One  spring  day  an  immense  number  of  doves  ap- 
peared and  settled  in  the  plantation.  It  was  a  species 
common  in  the  country  and  bred  in  our  trees,  and  in 
fact  in  every  grove  or  orchard  in  the  land — a  pretty 
dove-coloured  bird  with  a  pretty  sorrowful  song,  about 
a  third  less  in  size  than  the  domestic  pigeon,  and  be- 
longs to  the  American  genus  Zenaida,  This  dove  was 
a  resident  with  us  all  the  year  round,  but  occasionally 
in  spring  and  autumn  they  were  to  be  seen  travelling 
in  immense  flocks,  and  these  were  evidently  strangers 
in  the  land  and  came  from  some  sub-tropical  country 
in  the  north  where  they  had  no  fear  of  the  human  form. 
At  all  events,  on  going  out  into  the  plantation  I 


8o    FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 


found  them  all  about  on  the  ground,  diligently  search- 
ing for  seeds,  and  so  tame  and  heedless  of  my 
presence  that  I  actually  attempted  to  capture  them 
with  my  hands.  But  they  wouldn't  be  caught:  the 
bird  when  I  stooped  and  put  out  my  hands  slipped 
away,  and  flying  a  yard  or  two  would  settle  down 
in  front  of  me  and  go  on  looking  for  and  picking  up 
invisible  seeds. 

My  attempts  failing  I  rushed  back  to  the  house, 
wildly  excited,  to  look  for  an  old  gentleman  who  lived 
with  us  and  took  an  interest  in  me  and  my  passion  for 
birds,  and  finding  him  I  told  him  the  whole  place  was 
swarming  with  doves  and  they  were  perfectly  tame  but 
wouldn't  let  me  catch  them — could  he  tell  me  how  to 
catch  them?  He  laughed  and  said  I  must  be  a  little 
fool  not  to  know  how  to  catch  a  bird.  The  only  way 
was  to  put  salt  on  their  tails.  There  would  be  no  dif- 
ficulty in  doing  that,  I  thought,  and  how  delighted  I 
was  to  know  that  birds  could  be  caught  so  easily!  Off 
I  ran  to  the  salt-barrel  and  filled  my  pockets  and  hands 
with  coarse  salt  used  to  make  brine  in  which  to  dip 
the  hides;  for  I  wanted  to  catch  a  great  many  doves — 
armfuls  of  doves. 

In  a  few  minutes  I  was  out  again  in  the  plantation, 
with  doves  in  hundreds  moving  over  the  ground  all 
about  me  and  taking  no  notice  of  me.  It  was  a  joyful 
and  exciting  moment  when  I  started  operations,  but  I 
soon  found  that  when  I  tossed  a  handful  of  salt  at  the 
bird's  tail  it  never  fell  on  its  tail — it  fell  on  the  ground 
two  or  three  or  four  inches  short  of  the  tail.  If,  I 
thought,  the  bird  would  only  keep  still  a  moment  longer ! 
But  then  it  wouldn't,  and  I  think  I  spent  quite  two 


SOME  BIRD  ADVENTURES  8i 


hours  in  these  vain  attempts  to  make  the  salt  fall  on 
the  right  place.  At  last  I  went  back  to  my  mentor  to 
confess  that  I  had  failed  and  to  ask  for  fresh  instruc- 
tions, but  all  he  would  say  was  that  I  was  on  the  right 
track,  that  the  plan  I  had  adopted  was  the  proper  one, 
and  all  that  was  wanted  was  a  little  more  practice  to 
enable  me  to  drop  the  salt  on  the  right  spot.  Thus  en- 
couraged I  filled  my  pockets  again  and  started  afresh, 
and  then  finding  that  by  following  the  proper  plan  I  made 
no  progress  I  adopted  a  new  one,  which  was  to  take  a 
handful  of  salt  and  hurl  it  at  the  bird's  tail.  Still  I 
couldn't  touch  the  tail;  my  violent  action  only  fright- 
ened the  bird  and  caused  it  to  fly  away,  a  dozen  yards 
or  so,  before  dropping  down  again  to  resume  its  seed- 
searching  business. 

By-and-by  I  was  told  by  somebody  that  birds  could 
not  be  caught  by  putting  salt  on  their  tails;  that  I  was 
being  made  a  fool  of,  and  this  was  a  great  shock  to  me, 
since  I  had  been  taught  to  believe  that  it  was  wicked  to 
tell  a  lie.  Now  for  the  first  time  I  discovered  that  there 
were  lies  and  lies,  or  untruths  that  were  not  lies,  which 
one  could  tell  innocently  although  they  were  invented 
and  deliberately  told  to  deceive.  This  angered  me  at 
first,  and  I  wanted  to  know  how  I  was  to  distinguish 
between  real  lies  and  lies  that  were  not  lies,  and  the 
only  answer  I  got  was  that  I  could  distinguish  them 
by  not  being  a  fool! 

In  the  next  adventure  to  be  told  we  pass  from  the 
love  (or  tameness)  of  the  turtle  to  the  rage  of  the  vul- 
ture. It  may  be  remarked  in  passing  that  the  ver- 
nacular name  of  the  dove  I  have  described  is  Torcasa, 


82    FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

which  I  take  it  is  a  corruption  of  Tortola,  the  name  first 
given  to  it  by  the  early  colonists  on  account  of  its  slight 
resemblance  to  the  turtle-dove  of  Europe. 

Then,  as  to  the  vulture,  it  was  not  a  true  vulture 
nor  a  strictly  true  eagle,  but  a  carrion-hawk,  a  bird 
the  size  of  a  small  eagle,  blackish  brown  in  colour  with 
a  white  neck  and  breast  suffused  with  brown  and 
spotted  with  black;  also  it  had  a  very  big  eagle-shaped 
beak,  and  claws  not  so  strong  as  an  eagle's  nor  so 
w^eak  as  a  vulture's.  In  its  habits  it  was  both  eagle 
and  vulture,  as  it  fed  on  dead  flesh,  and  was  also  a 
hunter  and  killer  of  animals  and  birds,  especially  of  the 
weakly  and  young.  A  somewhat  destructive  creature 
to  poultry  and  young  sucking  lambs  and  pigs.  Its 
feeding  habits  were,  in  fact,  very  like  those  of  the 
raven,  and  its  voice,  too,  was  raven-like,  or  rather  like 
that  of  the  carrion-crow  at  his  loudest  and  harshest. 
Considering  the  character  of  this  big  rapacious  bird, 
the  Polyborus  tharus  of  naturalists  and  the  carancho  of 
the  natives,  it  may  seem  strange  that  a  pair  were  al- 
lowed to  nest  and  live  for  years  in  our  plantation,  but 
in  those  days  people  were  singularly  tolerant  not  only 
of  injurious  birds  and  beasts  but  even  of  beings  of 
their  own  species  of  predaceous  habits. 

On  the  outskirts  of  our  old  peach  orchard,  described 
in  a  former  chapter,  there  was  a  solitary  tree  of  a 
somewhat  singular  shape,  standing  about  forty  yards 
from  the  others  on  the  edge  of  a  piece  of  waste  weedy 
land.  It  was  a  big  old  tree  like  the  others,  and  had  a 
smooth  round  trunk  standing  about  fourteen  feet  high 
and  throwing  out  branches  all  round,  so  that  its  upper 
part  had  the  shape  of  an  open  inverted  umbrella.  And 


SOME  BIRD  ADVENTURES  83 


in  the  convenient  hollow  formed  by  the  circle  of 
branches  the  caranchos  had  built  their  huge  nest,  com- 
posed of  sticks,  lumps  of  turf,  dry  bones  of  sheep  and 
other  animals,  pieces  of  rope  and  raw  hide,  and  any 
other  object  they  could  carry.  The  nest  was  their 
home;  they  roosted  in  it  by  night  and  visited  it  at 
odd  times  during  the  day,  usually  bringing  a  bleached 
bone  or  thistle-stalk  or  some  such  object  to  add  to 
the  pile. 

Our  birds  never  attacked  the  fowls,  and  were  not 
offensive  or  obtrusive,  but  kept  to  their  own  end  of 
the  plantation  furthest  away  from  the  buildings.  They 
only  came  when  an  animal  was  killed  for  meat,  and 
would  then  hang  about,  keeping  a  sharp  eye  on  the 
proceedings  and  watching  their  chance.  This  would 
come  when  the  carcass  was  dressed  and  lights  and 
other  portions  thrown  to  the  dogs;  then  the  caramho 
would  swoop  down  like  a  kite,  and  snatching  up  the 
meat  with  his  beak  would  rise  to  a  height  of  twenty 
or  thirty  yards  in  the  air,  and  dropping  his  prize  would 
deftly  catch  it  again  in  his  claws  and  soar  away  to  feed 
on  it  at  leisure.  I  was  never  tired  of  admiring  this 
feat  of  the  carancho,  which  is,  I  believe,  unique  in 
birds  of  prey. 

The  big  nest  in  the  old  inverted-umbrella-shaped 
peach  tree  had  a  great  attraction  for  me;  I  used  often 
to  visit  it  and  wonder  if  I  would  ever  have  the  power 
of  getting  up  to  it.  Oh,  what  a  delight  it  would  be 
to  get  up  there,  above  the  nest,  and  look  down  into 
the  great  basin-like  hollow  Hned  with  sheep's  wool  and 
see  the  eggs,  bigger  than  turkey's  eggs,  all  marbled 
with  deep  red,  or  creamy  white  splashed  with  blood- 


84    FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

red!  For  I  had  seen  carancho  eggs  brought  in  by  a 
gaucho,  and  I  was  ambitious  to  take  a  clutch  from  a 
nest  with  my  own  hands.  It  was  true  I  had  been  told 
by  my  mother  that  if  I  wanted  wild  birds'  eggs  I  was 
never  to  take  more  than  one  from  a  nest,  unless  it  was 
of  some  injurious  species.  And  injurious  the  carancho 
certainly  was,  in  spite  of  his  good  behaviour  when  at 
home.  On  one  of  my  early  rides  on  my  pony  I  had 
seen  a  pair  of  them,  and  I  think  they  were  our  own 
birds,  furiously  attacking  a  weak  and  sickly  ewe;  she 
had  refused  to  lie  down  to  be  killed,  and  they  were  on 
her  neck,  beating  and  tearing  at  her  face  and  trying  to 
pull  her  down.  Also  I  had  seen  a  litter  of  little  pigs 
a  sow  had  brought  forth  on  the  plain  attacked  by  six 
or  seven  caranchos,  and  found  on  approaching  the  spot 
that  they  had  killed  half  of  them  (about  six,  I  think), 
and  were  devouring  them  at  some  distance  from  the 
old  pig  and  the  survivors  of  the  litter.  But  how  could 
I  climb  the  tree  and  get  over  the  rim  of  the  huge 
nest?  And  I  was  afraid  of  the  birds,  they  looked  so 
unspeakably  savage  and  formidable  whenever  I  went 
near  them.  But  my  desire  to  get  the  eggs  was  over- 
mastering, and  when  it  was  spring  and  I  had  reason  to 
think  that  eggs  were  being  laid,  I  went  oftener  than 
ever  to  watch  and  wait  for  an  opportunity.  And  one 
evening  just  after  sunset  I  could  not  see  the  birds  any- 
where about  and  thought  my  chance  had  now  come. 
I  managed  to  swarm  up  the  smooth  trunk  to  the 
branches,  and  then  with  wildly  beating  heart  began 
the  task  of  trying  to  get  through  the  close  branches 
and  to  work  my  way  over  the  huge  rim  of  the  nest. 
Just  then  I  heard  the  harsh  grating  cry  of  the  bird, 


SOME  BIRD  ADVENTURES  85 

and  peering  through  the  leaves  in  the  direction  it  came 
from  I  caught  sight  of  the  two  birds  flying  furiously 
towards  me,  screaming  again  as  they  came  nearer. 
Then  terror  seized  me,  and  down  I  went  through  the 
branches,  and  catching  hold  of  the  lowest  one  managed 
to  swing  myself  clear  and  dropped  to  the  ground.  It 
was  a  good  long  drop,  but  I  fell  on  a  soft  turf,  and 
springing  to  my  feet  fled  to  the  shelter  of  the  orchard 
and  then  on  towards  the  house,  without  ever  looking 
back  to  see  if  they  were  following. 

That  was  my  only  attempt  to  raid  the  nest,  and 
from  that  time  the  birds  continued  in  peaceful  posses- 
sion of  it,  until  it  came  into  some  person's  mind  that 
this  huge  nest  was  detrimental  to  the  tree,  and  was  the 
cause  of  its  producing  so  little  fruit  compared  with  any 
other  tree,  and  the  nest  was  accordingly  pulled  down, 
and  the  birds  forsook  the  place. 

In  the  description  in  a  former  chapter  of  our  old 
peach  trees  in  their  blossoming  time  I  mentioned  the 
paroquets  which  occasionally  visited  us  but  had  their 
breeding-place  some  distance  away.  This  bird  was 
one  of  the  two  common  parrots  of  the  district,  the 
other  larger  species  being  the  Patagonian  parrot.  Con- 
arus  patagonus,  the  Loro  barranquero  or  Cliff  Parrot 
of  the  natives.  In  my  early  years  this  bird  was  com- 
mon on  the  treeless  pampas  extending  for  hundreds 
of  miles  south  of  Buenos  Ayres  as  well  as  in  Pat- 
agonia, and  bred  in  holes  it  excavated  in  cliffs  and 
steep  banks  at  the  side  of  lakes  and  rivers.  These 
breeding-sites  were  far  south  of  my  home,  and  I 
did  not  visit  them  until  my  boyhood's  days  were  over. 

In  winter  these  birds  had  a  partial  migration  to  the 


86    FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

north:  at  that  season  we  were  visited  by  flocks,  and 
as  a  child  it  was  a  joy  to  me  when  the  resounding 
screams  of  the  travelling  parrots,  heard  in  the  silence 
long  before  the  birds  became  visible  in  the  sky,  an- 
nounced their  approach.  Then,  when  they  appeared 
flying  at  a  moderate  height,  how  strange  and  beautiful 
they  looked,  with  long  pointed  wings  and  long  gradu- 
ated tails,  in  their  sombre  green  plumage  touched  with 
yellow,  blue,  and  crimson  colour!  How  I  longed  for 
a  nearer  acquaintance  with  these  winter  visitors  and 
hoped  they  would  settle  on  our  trees!  Sometimes 
they  did  settle  to  rest,  perhaps  to  spend  half  a  day  or 
longer  in  the  plantation;  and  sometimes,  to  my  great 
happiness,  a  flock  would  elect  to  remain  with  us  for 
whole  days  and  weeks,  feeding  on  the  surrounding 
plain,  coming  at  intervals  to  the  trees  during  the  day, 
and  at  night  to  roost.  I  used  to  go  out  on  my  pony 
to  follow  and  watch  the  flock  at  feed,  and  wondered  at 
their  partiality  for  the  bitter-tasting  seeds  of  the  wild 
pumpkin.  This  plant,  which  was  abundant  with  us, 
produced  an  egg-shaped  fruit  about  half  the  size  of  an 
ostriches  egg,  with  a  hard  shell-like  rind,  but  the  birds 
with  their  sharp  iron-hard  beaks  would  quickly  break 
up  the  dry  shell  and  feast  on  the  pips,  scattering  the 
seed-shells  about  till  the  ground  was  whitened  with 
them.  When  I  approached  the  feeding  flock  on  my 
pony  the  birds  would  rise  up  and,  flying  to  and  at  me, 
hover  in  a  compact  crowd  just  above  my  head,  almost 
deafening  me  with  their  angry  screams. 

The  smaller  bird,  the  paroquet,  which  was  about 
the  size  of  a  turtle-dove,  had  a  uniform  rich  green 
colour  above  and  ashy-grey  beneath,  and,  like  most 


SOME  BIRD  ADVENTURES  87 


parrots,  it  nested  in  trees.  It  is  one  of  the  most  social 
birds  I  know;  it  lives  all  the  year  round  in  communi- 
ties and  builds  huge  nests  of  sticks  near  together  as  in 
a  rookery,  each  nest  having  accommodation  for  two  or 
three  to  half-a-dozen  pairs.  Each  pair  has  an  entrance 
and  nest  cavity  of  its  own  in  the  big  structure. 

The  only  breeding-place  in  our  neighbourhood  was 
in  a  grove  or  remains  of  an  ancient  ruined  plantation 
at  an  estancia  house,  about  nine  miles  from  us,  owned 
by  an  Englishman  named  Ramsdale.  Here  there  was 
a  colony  of  about  a  couple  of  hundred  birds,  and  the 
dozen  or  more  trees  they  had  built  on  were  laden  with 
their  great  nests,  each  one  containing  as  much  material 
as  would  have  filled  a  cart. 

Mr.  Ramsdale  was  not  our  nearest  English  neigh- 
bour— the  one  to  be  described  in  another  chapter;  nor 
was  he  a  man  we  cared  much  about,  and  his  meagre 
establishment  was  not  attractive,  as  his  old  slatternly 
native  housekeeper  and  the  other  servants  were  allowed 
to  do  just  what  they  liked.  But  he  was  English  and 
a  neighbour,  and  my  parents  made  it  a  point  of  paying 
him  an  occasional  visit,  and  I  always  managed  to  go 
with  them — certainly  not  to  see  Mr.  Ramsdale,  who 
had  nothing  to  say  to  a  shy  little  boy  and  whose  hard 
red  face  looked  the  face  of  a  hard  drinker.  My  visits 
were  to  the  paroquets  exclusively.  Oh,  why,  thought 
I  many  and  many  a  time,  did  not  these  dear  green 
people  come  over  to  us  and  have  their  happy  village 
in  our  trees!  Yet  when  I  visited  them  they  didn't 
like  it;  no  sooner  would  I  run  out  to  the  grove  where 
the  nests  were  than  the  place  would  be  in  an  uproar. 
Out  and  up  they  would  rush,  to  unite  in  a  flock  and 


88    FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

hover  shrieking  over  my  head,  and  the  commotion  v^ould 
last  until  I  left  them. 

On  our  return  late  one  afternoon  in  early  spring 
from  one  of  our  rare  visits  to  Mr.  Ramsdale,  we  wit- 
nessed a  strange  thing.  The  plain  at  that  place  was 
covered  with  a  dense  growth  of  cardoon-thistle  or  wild 
artichoke,  and  leaving  the  estancia  house  in  our  trap, 
we  followed  the  cattle  tracks  as  there  was  no  road  on 
that  side.  About  half-way  home  we  saw  a  troop  of 
seven  or  eight  deer  in  an  open  green  space  among  the 
big  grey  thistle-bushes,  but  instead  of  uttering  their 
whistling  alarm-cry  and  making  off  at  our  approach 
they  remained  at  the  same  spot,  although  we  passed 
within  forty  yards  of  them.  The  troop  was  composed 
of  two  bucks  engaged  in  a  furious  fight,  and  five  or  six 
does  walking  round  and  round  the  two  fighters.  The 
bucks  kept  their  heads  so  low  down  that  their  noses 
were  almost  touching  the  ground,  while  with  their  horns 
locked  together  they  pushed  violently,  and  from  time 
to  time  one  would  succeed  in  forcing  the  other  ten  or 
twenty  feet  back.  Then  a  pause,  then  another  violent 
push,  then  with  horns  still  together  they  would  move 
sideways,  round  and  round,  and  so  on  until  we  left 
them  behind  and  lost  sight  of  them. 

This  spectacle  greatly  excited  us  at  the  time  and 
was  vividly  recalled  several  months  afterwards  when 
one  of  our  gaucho  neighbours  told  us  of  a  curious 
thing  he  had  just  seen.  He  had  been  out  on  that 
cardoon-covered  spot  where  we  had  seen  the  fighting 
deer,  and  at  that  very  spot  in  the  little  green  space  he 
had  come  upon  the  skeletons  of  two  deer  with  their 
horns  interlocked. 


SOME  BIRD  ADVENTURES  89 

Tragedies  of  this  kind  in  the  wild  animal  world  have 
often  been  recorded,  but  they  are  exceedingly  rare  on 
the  pampas,  as  the  smooth  few-pronged  antlers  of  the 
native  deer,  corvus  campestris,  are  not  so  liable  to  get 
hopelessly  locked  as  in  many  other  species. 

Deer  were  common  in  our  district  in  those  days, 
and  were  partial  to  land  overgrown  with  cardoon  thistle, 
which  in  the  absence  of  trees  and  thickets  afforded  them 
some  sort  of  cover.  I  seldom  rode  to  that  side  with- 
out getting  a  sight  of  a  group  of  deer,  often  looking 
exceedingly  conspicuous  in  their  bright  fawn  colour  as 
they  stood  gazing  at  the  intruder  amidst  the  wide  waste 
of  grey  cardoon  bushes. 

These  rough  plains  were  also  the  haunt  of  the  rhea, 
our  ostrich,  and  it  was  here  that  I  first  had  a  close 
sight  of  this  greatest  and  most  unbird-like  bird  of  our 
continent.  I  was  eight  years  old  then,  when  one  after- 
noon in  late  summer  I  was  just  setting  oK  for  a  ride 
on  my  pony,  when  I  was  told  to  go  out  on  the  east 
side  till  I  came  to  the  cardoon-covered  land  about  a 
mile  beyond  the  shepherd's  ranch.  The  shepherd  was 
wanted  in  the  plantation  and  could  not  go  to  the  flock 
just  yet,  and  I  was  told  to  look  for  the  flock  and  turn 
it  towards  home. 

I  found  the  flock  just  where  I  had  been  told  to  look 
for  it,  the  sheep  very  widely  scattered,  and  some  groups 
of  a  dozen  or  two  to  a  hundred  were  just  visible  at 
a  distance  among  the  rough  bushes.  Just  where  these 
furthest  sheep  were  grazing  there  was  a  scattered  troop 
of  seventy  or  eighty  horses  grazing  too,  and  when  I  rode 
to  that  spot  I  all  at  once  found  myself  among  a  lot 
of  rheas,  feeding  too  among  the  sheep  and  horses. 


90    FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

Their  grey  plumage  being  so  much  like  the  cardoon 
bushes  in  colour  had  prevented  me  from  seeing  them 
before  I  was  right  among  them. 

The  strange  thing  was  that  they  paid  not  the  slightest 
attention  to  me,  and  pulling  up  my  pony  I  sat  staring 
in  astonishment  at  them,  particularly  at  one,  a  very 
big  one  and  nearest  to  me,  engaged  in  leisurely  pecking 
at  the  clover  plants  growing  among  the  big  prickly 
thistle  leaves,  and  as  it  seemed  carefully  selecting  the 
best  sprays. 

What  a  great  noble-looking  bird  it  was  and  how  beau- 
tiful in  its  loose  grey-and-white  plumage,  hanging  like 
a  picturesquely-worn  mantle  about  its  body!  Why 
were  they  so  tame?  I  wondered.  The  sight  of  a 
mounted  gaucho,  even  at  a  great  distance,  will  in- 
variably set  them  ofif  at  their  topmost  speed;  yet  here 
I  was  within  a  dozen  yards  of  one  of  them,  with 
several  others  about  me,  all  occupied  in  examining  the 
herbage  and  selecting  the  nicest-looking  leaves  to  pluck, 
just  as  if  I  was  not  there  at  all!  I  suppose  it  was 
because  I  was  only  a  small  boy  on  a  small  horse 
and  was  not  associated  in  the  ostrich  brain  with  the 
wild-looking  gaucho  on  his  big  animal  charging  upon 
him  with  a  deadly  purpose.  Presently  I  went  straight 
at  the  one  near  me,  and  he  then  raised  his  head 
and  neck  and  moved  carelessly  away  to  a  distance 
of  a  few  yards,  then  began  cropping  the  clover  once 
more.  I  rode  at  him  again,  putting  my  pony  to  a 
trot,  and  when  within  two  yards  of  him  he  all  at 
once  swung  his  body  round  in  a  quaint  way  towards 
me,  and  breaking  into  a  sort  of  dancing  trot  brushed 
past  me. 


SOME  BIRD  ADVENTURES  91 

Pulling  up  again  and  looking  back  I  found  he  was 
ten  or  twelve  yards  behind  me,  once  more  quietly  en- 
gaged in  cropping  clover  leaves! 

Again  and  again  this  bird,  and  one  of  the  others  I 
rode  at,  practised  the  same  pretty  trick,  first  appear- 
ing perfectly  unconcerned  at  my  presence  and  then,  when 
I  made  a  charge  at  them,  with  just  one  little  careless 
movement  placing  themselves  a  dozen  yards  behind 
me. 

But  this  same  trick  of  the  rhea  is  wonderful  to  see 
when  the  hunted  bird  is  spent  with  running  and  is 
finally  overtaken  by  one  of  the  hunters  who  has  per- 
haps lost  the  bolas  with  which  he  captures  his  quarry, 
and  who  endeavours  to  place  himself  side  by  side 
with  it  so  as  to  reach  it  with  his  knife.  It  seems 
an  easy  thing  to  do:  the  bird  is  plainly  exhausted, 
panting,  his  wings  hanging,  as  he  lopes  on,  yet  no 
sooner  is  the  man  within  striking  distance  than  the 
sudden  motion  comes  into  play,  and  the  bird  as  by  a 
miracle  is  now  behind  instead  of  at  the  side  of  the 
horse.  And  before  the  horse  going  at  top  speed  can 
be  reined  in  and  turned  round,  the  rhea  has  had  time 
to  recover  his  wind  and  get  a  hundred  yards  away  or 
more.  It  is  on  account  of  this  tricky  instinct  of  the 
rhea  that  the  gauchos  say,  ''El  avestruz  es  el  mas 
gaucho  de  los  animales,''  which  means  that  the  ostrich, 
in  its  resourcefulness  and  the  tricks  it  practises  to  save 
itself  when  hard  pressed,  is  as  clever  as  the  gaucho 
knows  himself  to  be. 


CHAPTER  VII 


My  First  Visit  to  Buenos  Ayres 

Happiest  time — First  visit  to  the  Capital — Old  and  New 
Buenos  Ayres — Vivid  impressions — Solitary  walk — 
How  I  learnt  to  go  alone — Lost — The  house  we  stayed 
at  and  the  sea-like  river — Rough  and  narrow  streets — 
Rows  of  posts — Carts  and  noise — A  great  church  festival 
— Young  men  in  black  and  scarlet — River  scenes — 
Washerwomen  and  their  language — Their  word-fights 
with  young  fashionables — Night  watchmen — ^A  young 
gentleman's  pastime — ^A  fishing  dog — ^A  fine  gentleman 
seen  stoning  little  birds — ^A  glimpse  of  Don  Eusebio, 
the  Dictator's  fool. 

The  happiest  time  of  my  boyhood  was  at  that  early 
period,  a  little  past  the  age  of  six,  when  I  had  my 
own  pony  to  ride  on,  and  was  allowed  to  stay  on  his 
back  just  as  long  and  go  as  far  from  home  as  I  liked. 
I  was  like  the  young  bird  when  on  first  quitting  the 
nest  it  suddenly  becomes  conscious  of  its  power  to 
fly.  My  early  flying  days  were,  however,  soon  inter- 
rupted, when  my  mother  took  me  on  my  first  visit  to 
Buenos  Ayres;  that  is  to  say,  the  first  I  remember, 
as  I  must  have  been  taken  there  once  before  as  an 
infant  in  arms,  since  we  lived  too  far  from  town  for 
any  missionary-clergyman  to  travel  all  that  distance 
just  to  baptize  a  little  baby.  Buenos  Ayres  is  now 
the  wealthiest,  most  populous,  Europeanized  city  in 

92 


MY  VISIT  TO  BUENOS  AYRES  93 

South  America:  what  it  was  like  at  that  time  these 
ghmpses  into  a  far  past  will  serve  to  show.  Coming 
as  a  small  boy  of  an  exceptionally  impressionable  mind, 
from  that  green  plain  where  people  lived  the  simple 
pastoral  life,  everything  I  saw  in  the  city  impressed 
me  deeply,  and  the  sights  which  impressed  me  the 
most  are  as  vivid  in  my  mind  to-day  as  they  ever 
were.  I  was  a  solitary  little  boy  in  my  rambles  about 
the  streets,  for  though  I  had  a  younger  brother  who 
was  my  only  playmate,  he  was  not  yet  five,  and  too 
small  to  keep  me  company  in  my  walks.  Nor  did  I 
mind  having  no  one  with  me.  Very,  very  early  in 
my  boyhood  I  had  acquired  the  habit  of  going  about 
alone  to  amuse  myself  in  my  own  way,  and  it  was 
only  after  years,  when  my  age  was  about  twelve,  that 
my  mother  told  me  how  anxious  this  singularity  in 
me  used  to  make  her.  She  would  miss  me  when  look- 
ing out  to  see  what  the  children  were  doing,  and  I 
would  be  called  and  searched  for,  to  be  found  hidden 
away  somewhere  in  the  plantation.  Then  she  began 
to  keep  an  eye  on  me,  and  when  I  was  observed  steal- 
ing of¥  she  would  secretly  follow  and  watch  me,  stand- 
ing motionless  among  the  tall  weeds  or  under  the 
trees  by  the  half -hour,  staring  at  vacancy.  This 
distressed  her  very  much;  then  to  her  great  relief 
and  joy  she  discovered  that  I  was  there  with  a  mo- 
tive which  she  could  understand  and  appreciate:  that 
I  was  watching  some  living  thing,  an  insect  perhaps, 
but  oftener  a  bird — a  pair  of  little  scarlet  flycatchers 
building  a  nest  of  lichen  on  a  peach  tree,  or  some  such 
beautiful  thing.  And  as  she  loved  all  living  things 
herself  she  was  quite  satisfied  that  I  was  not  going 


94    FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

queer  in  my  head,  for  that  was  what  she  had  been 
fearing. 

The  strangeness  of  the  streets  was  a  little  too  much 
for  me  at  the  start,  and  I  remember  that  on  first  ven- 
turing out  by  myself  a  little  distance  from  home  I 
got  lost  In  despair  of  ever  finding  my  way  back  I 
began  to  cry,  hiding  my  face  against  a  post  at  a  street 
corner,  and  was  there  soon  surrounded  by  quite  a  num- 
ber of  passers-by;  then  a  policeman  came  up,  with 
brass  buttons  on  his  blue  coat  and  a  sword  at  his  side, 
and  taking  me  by  the  arm  he  asked  me  in  a  command- 
ing voice  where  I  lived — the  name  of  the  street  and 
the  number  of  the  house.  I  couldn't  tell  him;  then  I 
began  to  get  frightened  on  account  of  his  sword  and 
big  black  moustache  and  loud  rasping  voice,  and  sud- 
denly ran  away,  and  after  running  for  about  six  oj 
eight  minutes  found  myself  back  at  home,  to  my  sur- 
prise and  joy. 

The  house  where  we  stayed  with  English  friends 
was  near  the  front,  or  what  was  then  the  front,  that 
part  of  the  city  which  faced  the  Plata  river,  a  river 
which  was  like  the  sea,  with  no  visible  shore  beyond; 
and  like  the  sea  it  was  tidal,  and  differed  only  in  its 
colour,  which  was  a  muddy  red  instead  of  blue  or 
green.  The  house  was  roomy,  and  like  most  of  the 
houses  at  that  date  had  a  large  courtyard  paved  with 
red  tiles  and  planted  with  small  lemon  trees  and  flower- 
ing shrubs  of  various  kinds.  The  streets  were  straight 
and  narrow,  paved  with  round  boulder  stones  the 
size  of  a  football,  the  pavements  with  brick  or  flag- 
stones, and  so  narrow  they  would  hardly  admit  of 
more  than  two  persons  walking  abreast.    Along  the 


MY  VISIT  TO  BUENOS  AYRES  95 


pavements  on  each  side  of  the  street  were  rows  of 
posts  placed  at  a  distance  of  ten  yards  apart.  These 
strange-looking  rows  of  posts,  which  foreigners  laughed 
to  see,  were  no  doubt  the  remains  of  yet  ruder  times, 
when  ropes  of  hide  were  stretched  along  the  side  of 
the  pavements  to  protect  the  foot-passengers  from  run- 
away horses,  wild  cattle  driven  by  wild  men  from 
the  plains,  and  other  dangers  of  the  narrow  streets. 
As  they  were  then  paved  the  streets  must  have  been 
the  noisiest  in  the  world,  on  account  of  the  immense 
numbers  of  big  springless  carts  in  them.  Imagine  the 
thunderous  racket  made  by  a  long  procession  of  these 
carts,  when  they  were  returning  empty,  and  the  drivers, 
as  was  often  the  case,  urged  their  horses  to  a  gallop, 
and  they  bumped  and  thundered  over  the  big  round 
stones ! 

Just  opposite  the  house  we  stayed  at  there  was  a 
large  church,  one  of  the  largest  of  the  numerous  churches 
of  the  city,  and  one  of  my  most  vivid  memories  re- 
lates to  a  great  annual  festival  at  the  church — ■ 
that  of  the  patron  saint's  day.  It  had  been  open 
to  worshippers  all  day,  but  the  chief  service  was  held 
about  three  o'clock  in  the  afternoon;  at  all  events  it 
was  at  that  hour  when  a  great  attendance  of  fashion- 
able people  took  place.  I  watched  them  as  they  came 
in  couples,  families  and  small  groups,  in  every  case  the 
ladies,  beautifully  dressed,  attended  by  their  cavaliers. 
At  the  door  of  the  church  the  gentleman  would  make 
his  bow  and  withdraw  to  the  street  before  the  building, 
where  a  sort  of  oufdoor  gathering  was  formed  of  all 
those  who  had  come  as  escorts  to  the  ladies,  and  where 
they  would  remain  until  the  service  was  over.  The 


96    FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

crowd  in  the  street  grew  and  grew  until  there  were 
about  four  or  five  hundred  gentlemen,  mostly  young, 
in  the  gathering,  all  standing  in  small  groups,  convers- 
ing in  an  animated  way,  so  that  the  street  was  filled 
with  the  loud  humming  sound  of  their  blended  voices. 
These  men  were  all  natives,  all  of  the  good  or  upper 
class  of  the  native  society,  and  all  dressed  exactly  alike 
in  the  fashion  of  that  time.  It  was  their  dress  and  the 
uniform  appearance  of  so  large  a  number  of  persons, 
most  of  them  with  young,  handsome,  animated  faces, 
that  fascinated  me  and  kept  me  on  the  spot  gazing  at 
them  until  the  big  bells  began  to  thunder  at  the  con- 
clusion of  the  service  and  the  immense  concourse  of 
gaily-dressed  ladies  swarmed  out,  and  immediately  the 
meeting  broke  up,  the  gentlemen  hurrying  back  to  meet 
them. 

They  all  wore  silk  hats  and  the  glossiest  black  broad- 
cloth, not  even  a  pair  of  trousers  of  any  other  shade 
was  seen;  and  all  wore  the  scarlet  silk  or  fine  cloth 
waistcoat  which,  at  that  period,  was  considered  the  right 
thing  for  every  citizen  of  the  republic  to  wear;  also,  in 
lieu  of  buttonhole,  a  scarlet  ribbon  pinned  to  the  lapel 
of  the  coat.  It  was  a  pretty  sight,  and  the  concourse 
reminded  me  of  a  flock  of  military  starlings,  a  black  or 
dark-plumaged  bird  with  a  scarlet  breast,  one  of  my 
feathered  favourites. 

My  rambles  were  almost  always  on  the  front,  since  I 
could  walk  there  a  mile  or  two  from  home,  north  or 
south,  without  getting  lost,  always  with  the  vast  ex- 
panse of  water  on  one  hand,  with  many  big^  ships 
looking  dim  in  the  distance,  and  numerous  lighters  or 
belanders  coming  from  them  with  cargoes  of  mer- 


MY  VISIT  TO  BUENOS  AYRES  97 


chandise  which  they  unloaded  into  carts^  these  going 
out  a  quarter  of  a  mile  in  the  shallow  water  to  meet 
them.  Then  there  were  the  water-carts  going  and 
coming  in  scores  and  hundreds,  for  at  that  period  there 
was  no  water  supply  to  the  houses,  and  every  house- 
holder had  to  buy  muddy  water  by  the  bucket  at  his 
own  door  from  the  watermen. 

One  of  the  most  attractive  spots  to  me  was  the 
congregating  place  of  the  lavanderas,  south  of  my 
street.  Here  on  the  broad  beach  under  the  clifif  one 
saw  a  whiteness  like  a  white  cloud,  covering  the  ground 
for  a  space  of  about  a  third  of  a  mile;  and  the  cloud, 
as  one  drew  near,  resolved  itself  into  innumerable 
garments,  sheets  and  quilts,  and  other  linen  pieces, 
fluttering  from  long  lines,  and  covering  the  low  rocks 
washed  clean  by  the  tide  and  the  stretches  of  green 
turf  between.  It  was  the  spot  where  the  washerwomen 
were  allowed  to  wash  all  the  dirty  linen  of  Buenos 
Ayres  in  public.  All  over  the  ground  the  women, 
mostly  negresses,  were  seen  on  their  knees,  beside  the 
pools  among  the  rocks,  furiously  scrubbing  and  pound- 
ing away  at  their  work,  and  like  all  negresses  they  were 
e:^^ceedingly  vociferous,  and  their  loud  gabble,  mingled 
with  yells  and  shrieks  of  laughter,  reminded  me  of  the 
hubbub  made  by  a  great  concourse  of  gulls,  ibises,  god- 
wits,  geesL,  and  other  noisy  water-fowl  on  some  marshy 
lake.  It  was  a  wonderfully  animated  scene,  and  drew 
me  to  it  again  and  again :  I  found,  however,  that  it  was 
necessary  to  go  warily  among  these  women,  as  they 
looked  with  suspicion  at  idling  boys,  and  sometimes, 
when  I  picked  my  way  among  the  spread  garments, 
I  was  sharply  ordered  off.     Then,  too,  they  often 


98    FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

quarrelled  over  their  right  to  certain  places  and  spaces 
among  themselves;  then  very  suddenly  their  hilarious 
gabble  would  change  to  wild  cries  of  anger  and  torrents 
of  abuse.  By  and  by  I  discovered  that  their  greatest 
rages  and  worst  language  were  when  certain  young 
gentlemen  of  the  upper  classes  visited  the  spot  to 
amuse  themselves  by  baiting  the  lavanderas.  The  young 
gentleman  would  saunter  about  in  an  absent-minded 
manner  and  presently  walk  right  on  to  a  beautifully 
embroidered  and  belaced  nightdress  or  other  dainty 
garment  spread  out  to  dry  on  the  sward  or  rock,  and, 
standing  on  it,  calmly  proceed  to  take  out  and  light  a 
cigarette.  Instantly  the  black  virago  would  be  on  her 
feet  confronting  him  and  pouring  out  a  torrent  of  her 
foulest  expressions  and  deadliest  curses.  He,  in  a 
pretended  rage,  would  reply  in  even  worse  language. 
That  would  put  her  on  her  mettle;  for  now  all  her 
friends  and  foes  scattered  about  the  ground  would 
suspend  their  work  to  listen  with  all  their  ears;  and 
the  contest  of  words  growing  louder  and  fiercer  would 
last  until  the  combatants  were  both  exhausted  and  un- 
able to  invent  any  more  new  and  horrible  expressions 
of  opprobrium  to  hurl  at  each  other.  Then  the  insulted 
young  gentleman  would  kick  the  garment  away  in 
a  fury  and  hurling  the  unfinished  cigarette  in  his 
adversary's  face  would  walk  off  with  his  nose  in  the 
air. 

I  laugh  to  recall  these  unseemly  word-battles  on  the 
beach,  but  they  were  shocking  to  me  when  I  first  heard 
them  as  a  small,  innocent-minded  boy,  and  it  only  made 
the  case  worse  when  I  was  assured  that  the  young 
gentleman  was  only  acting  a  part,  that  the  extreme 


MY  VISIT  TO  BUENOS  AYRES  99 


anger  he  exhibited,  which  might  have  served  as  an 
excuse  for  using  such  language,  was  all  pretence. 

Another  favourite  pastime  of  these  same  idle,  rich 
young  gentlemen  offended  me  as  much  as  the  one  I 
have  related.  The  night-watchmen,  called  Serenos,  of 
that  time  interested  me  in  an  extraordinary  way.  When 
night  came  it  appeared  that  the  fierce  policemen,  with 
their  swords  and  brass  buttons,  were  no  longer  needed 
to  safeguard  the  people,  and  their  place  in  the  streets 
was  taken  by  a  quaint,  frowsy-looking  body  of  men, 
mostly  old,  some  almost  decrepit,  wearing  big  cloaks 
and  carrying  staffs  and  heavy  iron  lanterns  with  a  tallow 
candle  alight  inside.  But  what  a  pleasure  it  was  to  lie 
awake  at  night  and  listen  to  their  voices  calling  the 
hours!  The  calls  began  at  the  stroke  of  eleven,  and 
then  from  beneath  the  window  would  come  the  won- 
derful long  drawling  call  of  Las  on — ce  han  dd — do  y  se 
' — re — no,  which  means  eleven  of  the  clock  and  all  se- 
rene, but  if  clouded  the  concluding  word  would  be  nu — 
bid — do,  and  so  on,  according  to  the  weather.  From  all 
the  streets,  from  all  over  the  town,  the  long-drawn 
calls  would  float  to  my  listening  ears,  with  infinite 
variety  in  the  voices — the  high  and  shrill,  the  falsetto, 
the  harsh,  raucous  note  like  the  caw  of  the  carrion 
crow,  the  solemn,  booming  bass,  and  then  some  fine, 
rich,  pure  voice  that  soared  heavenwards  above  all 
the  others  and  was  like  the  pealing  notes  of  an  or- 
gan. 

I  loved  the  poor  night-watchmen  and  their  cries,  and 
it  grieved  my  little  soft  heart  to  hear  that  it  was  con- 
sidered fine  sport  by  the  rich  young  gentlemen  to  sally 
forth  at  night  and  do  battle  with  them,  and  to  deprive 


100  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

them  of  their  staf¥s  and  lanterns,  which  they  took 
home  and  kept  as  trophies. 

Another  human  phenomenon  which  annoyed  and 
shocked  my  tender  mind,  Hke  that  of  the  contests  on 
the  beach  between  young  gentlemen  and  washerwomen, 
was  the  multitude  of  beggars  which  infested  the  town. 
These  were  not  like  our  dignified  beggar  on  horse- 
back, with  his  red  poncho,  spurs  and  tall  staw  hat,  who 
rode  to  your  gate,  and  having  received  his  tribute, 
blessed  you  and  rode  away  to  the  next  estancia. 
These  city  beggars  on  the  pavement  were  the  most 
brutal,  even  fiendish,  looking  men  I  had  ever  seen. 
Most  of  them  were  old  soldiers,  who,  having  served 
their  ten,  fifteen,  or  twenty  years,  according  to  the 
nature  of  the  crime  for  which  they  had  been  con- 
demned to  the  army,  had  been  discharged  or  thrown 
out  to  live  like  carrion-hawks  on  what  they  could  pick 
up.  Twenty  times  a  day  at  least  you  would  hear  the 
iron  gate  opening  from  the  courtyard  into  the  street 
swung  open,  followed  by  the  call  or  shout  of  the 
beggar  demanding  charity  in  the  name  of  God.  Out- 
side you  could  not  walk  far  without  being  confronted 
by  one  of  these  men,  who  would  boldly  square  him- 
self in  front  of  you  on  the  narrow  pavement  and  beg 
for  alms.  If  you  had  no  change  and  said,  ^'Perdon, 
por  Dios,"  he  would  scowl  and  let  you  pass;  but  if  you 
looked  annoyed  or  disgusted,  or  ordered  him  out  of 
the  way,  or  pushed  by  without  a  word,  he  would  glare 
at  you  with  a  concentrated  rage  which  seemed  to  say, 
''Oh,  to  have  you  down  at  my  mercy,  bound  hand  and 
foot,  a  sharp  knife  in  my  hand!"  And  this  would  be 
followed  by  a  blast  of  the  most  horrible  language. 


MY  VISIT  TO  BUENOS  AYRES  loi 

One  day  I  witnessed  a  very  strange  thing,  the  action 
of  a  dog,  by  the  waterside.  It  was  evening  and  the 
beach  was  forsaken;  cartmen,  fishermen,  boatmen  all 
gone,  and  I  was  the  only  idler  left  on  the  rocks;  but 
the  tide  was  coming  in,  rolling  quite  big  waves  on  to 
the  rocks,  and  the  novel  sight  of  the  waves,  the  fresh- 
ness, the  joy  of  it,  kept  me  at  that  spot,  standing  on 
one  of  the  outermost  rocks  not  yet  washed  over  by 
the  water.  By  and  by  a  gentleman,  followed  by  a  big 
dog,  came  down  on  to  the  beach  and  stood  at  a 
distance  of  forty  or  fifty  yards  from  me,  while  the  dog 
bounded  forward  over  the  flat,  slippery  rocks  and 
through  pools  of  water  until  he  came  to  my  side,  and 
sitting  on  the  edge  of  the  rock  began  gazing  intently 
down  at  the  water.  He  was  a  big,  shaggy,  round- 
headed  animal,  with  a  greyish  coat  with  some  patches 
of  light  reddish  colour  on  it;  what  his  breed  was  I 
cannot  say,  but  he  looked  somewhat  like  a  sheep-dog 
or  an  otter-hound.  Suddenly  he  plunged  in,  quite 
disappearing  from  sight,  but  quickly  reappeared  with  a 
big  shad  of  about  three  and  a  half  or  four  pounds' 
weight  in  his  jaws.  Climbing  on  to  the  rock  he 
dropped  the  fish,  which  he  did  not  appear  to  have 
injured  much,  as  it  began  floundering  about  in  an 
exceedingly  lively  manner.  I  was  astonished  and 
looked  back  at  the  dog's  master;  but  there  he  stood  in 
the  same  place,  smoking  and  paying  no  attention  to 
what  his  animal  was  doing.  Again  the  dog  plunged  in 
and  brought  out  a  second  big  fish  and  dropped  it  on 
the  flat  rock,  and  again  and  again  he  dived,  until  there 
were  five  big  shads  all  floundering  about  on  the  wet 
rock  and  likely  soon  to  be  washed  back  into  the  water. 


102  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

The  shad  is  a  common  fish  in  the  Plata  and  the  best 
to  eat  of  all  its  fishes,  resembling  the  salmon  in  its  rich 
flavour,  and  is  eagerly  watched  for  when  it  comes  up 
from  the  sea  by  the  Buenos  Ayres  fishermen,  just  as 
our  fishermen  watch  for  mackerel  on  our  coasts.  But 
on  this  evening  the  beach  was  deserted  by  every  one, 
watchers  included,  and  the  fish  came  and  swarmed 
along  the  rocks,  and  there  was  no  one  to  catch  them — 
not  even  some  poor  hungry  idler  to  pounce  upon  and 
carry  off  the  five  fishes  the  dog  had  captured.  One 
by  one  I  saw  them  washed  back  into  the  water,  and 
presently  the  dog,  hearing  his  master  whistling  to  him, 
bounded  away. 

For  many  years  after  this  incident  I  failed  to  find 
any  one  who  had  even  seen  or  heard  of  a  dog  catching 
fish.  Eventually,  in  reading  I  met  with  an  account  of 
fishing-dogs  in  Newfoundland  and  other  countries. 

One  other  strange  adventure  met  with  on  the  front 
remains  to  be  told.  It  was  about  eleven  o'clock  in  the 
morning  and  I  was  on  the  parade,  walking  north, 
pausing  from  time  tO'  time  to  look  over  the  sea-wall  to 
watch  the  flocks  of  small  birds  that  came  to  feed  on 
the  beach  below.  Presently  my  attention  was  drawn 
to  a  young  man  walking  on  before  me,  pausing  and 
peering  too  from  time  to  time  over  the  wall,  and  when 
he  did  so  throwing  something  at  the  small  birds.  I 
ran  on  and  overtook  him,  and  was  rather  taken  aback 
at  his  wonderfully  fine  appearance.  He  was  like  one 
of  the  gentlemen  of  the  gathering  before  the  church, 
described  a  few  pages  back,  and  wore  a  silk  hat  and 
fashionable  black  coat  and  trousers  and  scarlet  silk 
waistcoat;  he  was  also  a  remarkably  handsome  young 


MY  VISIT  TO  BUENOS  AYRES  103 


gentleman,  with  a  golden-brown  curly  beard  and 
moustache  and  dark  liquid  eyes  that  studied  my  face 
with  a  half-amused  curiosity  when  I  looked  up  at  him. 
In  one  hand  he  carried  a  washleather  bag  by  its  handle, 
and  holding  a  pebble  in  his  right  hand  he  watched  the 
birds,  the  small  parties  of  crested  song  sparrows, 
yellow  house  sparrows,  siskins,  field  finches,  and  other 
kinds,  and  from  time  to  time  he  would  hurl  a  pebble 
at  the  bird  he  had  singled  out  forty  yards  down  below 
us  on  the  rocks.  I  did  not  see  him  actually  hit  a  bird, 
but  his  precision  was  amazing,  for  almost  invariably 
the  missile,  thrown  from  such  a  distance  at  so  minute 
an  object,  appeared  to  graze  the  feathers  and  to  miss 
killing  by  but  a  fraction  of  an  inch. 

I  followed  him  for  some  distance,  my  wonder  and 
curiosity  growing  every  minute  to  see  such  a  superior- 
looking  person  engaged  in  such  a  pastime.  For  it  is  a 
fact  that  the  natives  do  not  persecute  small  birds.  On 
the  contrary,  they  despise  the  aliens  in  the  land  who 
shoot  and  trap  them.  Besides,  if  he  wanted  small 
birds  for  any  purpose,  why  did  he  try  to  get  them  by 
throwing  pebbles  at  them?  As  he  did  not  order  me 
off,  but  looked  in  a  kindly  way  at  me  every  little 
while,  with  a  slight  smile  on  his  face,  I  at  length 
ventured  to  tell  him  that  he  would  never  get  a  bird 
that  way — that  it  would  be  impossible  at  that  distance 
to  hit  one  with  a  small  pebble.  ''Oh,  no,  not  im- 
possible,'' he  returned,  smiling  and  walking  on,  still 
with  an  eye  on  the  rocks.  "Well,  you  haven't  hit  one 
yet,''  I  was  bold  enough  to  say,  and  at  that  he  stopped, 
and  putting  his  finger  and  thumb  in  his  waistcoat  pocket 
he  pulled  out  a  dead  male  siskin  and  put  it  in  my  hands. 


104  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

This  was  the  bird  called  ''goldfinch''  by  the  English 
resident  in  La  Plata,  and  to  the  Spanish  it  is  also 
goldfinch;  it  is,  however,  a  siskin,  Chrysomitris  magel- 
lanica,  and  has  a  velvet-black  head,  the  rest  of  its 
plumage  being  black,  green,  and  shining  yellow.  It 
was  one  of  my  best-loved  birds,  but  I  had  never  had 
one  in  my  hand,  dead  or  alive,  before,  and  now  its 
wonderful  unimagined  loveliness,  its  graceful  form,  and 
the  exquisitely  pure  flower-like  yellow  hue  affected  me 
with  a  delight  so  keen  that  I  could  hardly  keep  from 
tears. 

After  gloating  a  few  moments  over  it,  touching  it 
with  my  finger-tips  and  opening  the  little  black  and 
gold  wings,  I  looked  up  pleadingly  and  begged  him  to 
let  me  keep  it.  He  smiled  and  shook  his  head:  he 
would  not  waste  his  breath  talking;  all  his  energy 
was  to  be  spent  in  hurling  pebbles  at  other  lovely  little 
birds. 

''Oh,  senor,  will  you  not  give  it  to  me?"  I  pleaded 
still;  and  then,  with  sudden  hope,  "Are  you  going  to 
sell  it?" 

He  laughed,  and  taking  it  from  my  hand  put  it 
back  in  his  waistcoat  pocket;  then,  with  a  pleasant 
smile  and  a  nod  to  say  that  the  interview  was  now  over, 
he  went  on  his  way. 

Standing  on  the  spot  where  he  left  me,  and  still 
bitterly  regretting  that  I  had  failed  to  get  the  bird,  I 
watched  him  until  he  disappeared  from  sight  in  the 
distance,  walking  towards  the  suburb  of  Palermo; 
and  a  mystery  he  remains  to  this  day,  the  one  and 
only  Argentine  gentleman,  a  citizen  of  the  Athens  of 
South  America,  amusing  himself  by  killing  little  birds 


MY  VISIT  TO  BUENOS  AYRES  105 


with  pebbles.  But  I  do  not  know  that  it  was  an 
amusement.  He  had  perhaps  in  some  wild  moment 
made  a  vow  to  kill  so  many  siskins  in  that  way,  or  a 
bet  to  prove  his  skill  in  throwing  a  pebble;  or  he  might 
have  been  practising  a  cure  for  some  mysterious  deadly 
malady,  prescribed  by  some  wandering  physician  from 
Bagdad  or  Ispaham;  or,  more  probable  still,  some 
heartless,  soulless  woman  he  was  in  love  with  had 
imposed  this  fantastical  task  on  him. 

Perhaps  the  most  wonderful  thing  I  saw  during  that 
first  eventful  visit  to  the  capital  was  the  famed  Don 
Eusebio,  the  court  jester  or  fool  of  the  President  or 
Dictator  Rosas,  the  ''Nero  of  South  America,"  who 
lived  in  his  palace  at  Palermo,  just  outside  the  city. 
I  had  been  sent  with  my  sisters  and  little  brother  to 
spend  the  day  at  the  house  of  an  Anglo-Argentine 
family  in  another  part  of  the  town,  and  we  were  in  the 
large  courtyard  playing  with  the  children  of  the  house 
when  some  one  opened  a  window  above  us  and  called 
out,  *'Don  Eusebio!''  That  conveyed  nothing  to 
me,  but  the  little  boys  of  the  house  knew  what  it 
meant;  it  meant  that  if  we  went  quickly  out  to  the 
street  we  might  catch  a  glimpse  of  the  great  man  in  all 
his  glory.  At  all  events,  they  jumped  up,  flinging 
their  toys  away,  and  rushed  to  the  street  door,  and  we 
after  them.  Coming  out  we  found  quite  a  crowd  of 
lookers-on,  and  then  down  the  street,  in  his  general's 
dress — for  it  was  one  of  the  Dictator's  little  jokes  to 
make  his  fool  a  general — all  scarlet,  with  a  big  scarlet 
three-cornered  hat  surmounted  by  an  immense  aigrette 
of  scarlet  plumes,  came  Don  Eusebio.  He  marched 
along  with  tremendous  dignity,  his  sword  at  his  side, 


io6  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

and  twelve  soldiers,  also  in  scarlet,  his  bodyguard, 
walking  six  on  each  side  of  him  with  drawn  swords  in 
their  hands. 

We  gazed  with  joyful  excitement  at  this  splendid 
spectacle,  and  it  made  it  all  the  more  thrilling  when 
one  of  the  boys  whispered  in  my  ear  that  if  any 
person  in  the  crowd  laughed  or  made  any  insulting  or 
rude  remark,  he  would  be  instantly  cut  to  pieces  by 
the  guard.  And  they  looked  truculent  enough  for 
anything. 

The  great  Rosas  himself  I  did  not  see,  but  it  was 
something  to  have  had  this  momentary  sight  of  General 
Eusebio,  his  fool,  on  the  eve  of  his  fall  after  a  reign  of 
over  twenty  years,  during  which  he  proved  himself  one 
of  the  bloodiest  as  well  as  the  most  original-minded  of 
the  Caudillos  and  Dictators,  and  altogether,  perhaps, 
the  greatest  of  those  who  have  climbed  into  power  in 
this  continent  of  republics  and  revolutions. 


CHAPTER  VIII 


The  Tyrant's  Fall  and  What  Followed 

The  portraits  in  our  drawing-room — ^The  Dictator  Rosas 
who  was  like  an  Englishman — ^The  strange  face  of  his 
wife,  Encarnacion — The  traitor  Urquiza — The  Min- 
ister of  War,  his  peacocks,  and  his  son — Home  again 
from  the  city — The  War  deprives  us  of  our  playmate — 
Natalia,  our  shepherd's  wife — Her  son,  Medardo — The 
Alcalde  our  grand  old  man — Battle  of  Monte  Caseros — 
The  defeated  army — Demands  for  fresh  horses — In  peril 
— My  father's  shining  defects — His  pleasure  in  a  thun- 
der storm — A  childhke  trust  in  his  fellow-men — Soldiers 
turn  upon  their  officer — A  refugee  given  up  and  murdered 
— Our  Alcalde  again — On  cutting  throats — Ferocity  and 
cynicism — Native  blood-Iust  and  its  effect  on  a  boy's 
mind — Feeling  about  Rosas — ^A  bird  poem  or  tale — Vain 
search  for  lost  poem  and  story  of  its  authorship — 
The  Dictator's  daughter — Time,  the  old  god. 

At  the  end  of  the  last  chapter,  when  describing  my 
one  sight  of  the  famous  jester,  Don  Eusebio,  in  his 
glory,  attended  by  a  body-guard  with  drawn  swords 
who  were  ready  to  cut  down  any  one  of  the  spectators 
who  failed  to  remove  his  hat  or  laughed  at  the  show, 
I  said  it  was  on  the  eve  of  the  fall  of  the  President  of 
the  Republic,  or  Dictator,  ''the  Tyrant,"  as  he  was 
called  by  his  adversaries  when  they  didn't  call  him  the 

107 


io8  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

''Nero  of  South  America''  or  the  "Tiger  of  Palermo'' 
— this  being  the  name  of  a  park  on  the  north  side  of 
Buenos  Ayres  where  Rosas  lived  in  a  white  stuccoed 
house  called  his  palace. 

At  that  time  the  portrait,  in  colours,  of  the  great  man 
occupied  the  post  of  honour  above  the  mantelpiece  in 
our  sala,  or  drawing-room — the  picture  of  a  man  with 
fine  clear-cut  regular  features,  light  reddish-brown  hair 
and  side-whiskers,  and  blue  eyes;  he  was  sometimes 
called  ''Englishman"  on  account  of  his  regular  features 
and  blonde  complexion.  That  picture  of  a  stern  hand- 
some face,  with  flags  and  cannon  and  olive-branch — 
the  arms  of  the  republic — in  its  heavy  gold  frame,  was 
one  of  the  principal  ornaments  of  the  room,  and  my 
father  was  proud  of  it,  since  he  was,  for  reasons  to  be 
stated  by  and  by,  a  great  admirer  of  Rosas,  an  out-and- 
out  Rosista,  as  the  loyal  ones  were  called.  This  portrait 
was  flanked  by  two  others:  one  of  Dona  Encarnacion, 
the  wife,  long  dead,  of  Rosas;  a  handsome,  proud- 
looking  young  woman  with  a  vast  amount  of  black 
hair  piled  up  on  her  head  in  a  fantastic  fashion,  sur- 
mounted by  a  large  tortoiseshell  comb.  I  remember 
that  as  small  children  we  used  to  look  with  a  queer, 
almost  uncanny  sort  of  feeling  at  this  face  under  its 
pile  of  black  hair,  because  it  was  handsome  but  not 
sweet  nor  gentle,  and  because  she  was  dead  and  had 
died  long  ago;  yet  it  was  like  the  picture  of  one  alive 
when  we  looked  at  it,  and  those  black  unloving  eyes 
gazed  straight  back  into  ours.  Why  did  those  eyes, 
unless  they  moved,  which  they  didn't,  always  look 
back  into  ours  no  matter  in  what  part  of  the  room  we 


THE  TYRANT'S  FALL  109 

stood? — a  perpetual  puzzle  to  our  childish  uninformed 
brains. 

On  the  other  side  was  the  repellent,  truculent  coun- 
tenance of  the  Captain-General  Urquiza,  who  was  the 
Dictator's  right-hand  man,  a  ferocious  cut-throat  if 
ever  there  was  one,  who  had  upheld  his  authority  for 
many  years  in  the  rebellious  upper  provinces,  but  who 
had  just  now  raised  the  standard  of  revolt  against  him 
and  in  a  little  while,  with  the  aid  of  a  Brazilian  army, 
would  succeed  in  overthrowing  him. 

The  central  portrait  inspired  us  with  a  kind  of  awe 
and  reverential  feeling,  since  even  as  small  children  we 
were  made  to  know  that  he  was  the  greatest  man  in 
the  republic,  that  he  had  unlimited  power  over  all 
men's  lives  and  fortunes  and  was  terrible  in  his  anger 
against  evil-doers,  especially  those  who  rebelled  against 
his  authority. 

Two  more  portraits  of  the  famous  men  of  the 
republic  of  that  date  adorned  the  same  wall.  Next 
to  Urquiza  was  General  Oribe,  commander  of  the 
army  sent  by  Rosas  against  Montevideo,  which  main- 
tained the  siege  of  that  city  for  the  space  of  ten 
years.  On  the  other  side,  next  to  Dona  Encarnacion, 
was  the  portrait  of  the  Minister  of  War,  a  face  which 
had  no  attraction  for  us  children,  as  it  was  not  coloured 
like  that  of  the  Dictator,  nor  had  any  romance  or 
mystery  in  it  like  that  of  his  dead  wife;  yet  it  served 
to  bring  all  these  pictured  people  into  our  actual  world 
— to  make  us  realize  that  they  were  the  counterfeit 
presentments  of  real  men  and  women.  For  it  happened 
that  this  same  Minister  of  War  was  in  a  way  a  neigh- 
bour of  ours,  as  he  owned  an  estanc^a.  which  he 


no  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

sometimes  visited,  about  three  leagues  from  us,  on 
that  part  of  the  plain  to  the  east  of  our  place  which  I 
have  described  in  a  former  chapter  as  being  covered  with 
a  dense  growth  of  the  bluish-grey  wild  artichoke,  the 
cardo  de  Castilla,  as  it  is  called  in  the  vernacular.  Like 
most  of  the  estancia  houses  of  that  day  it  was  a  long 
low  building  of  brick  with  thatched  roof,  surrounded 
by  an  enclosed  quinta,  or  plantation,  with  rows  of 
century-old  Lombardy  poplars  conspicuous  at  a  great 
distance,  and  many  old  acacia,  peach,  quince,  and 
cherry  trees.  It  was  a  cattle  and  horse-breeding  estab- 
lishment, but  the  beasts  were  of  less  account  to  the 
owner  than  his  peacocks,  a  fowl  for  which  he  had  so 
great  a  predilection  that  he  could  not  have  too  many 
of  them;  he  was  always  buying  more  peacocks  to  send 
out  to  the  estate,  and  they  multiplied  until  the  whole 
place  swarmed  with  them.  And  he  wanted  them  all 
for  himself,  so  that  it  was  forbidden  to  sell  or  give 
even  an  egg  away.  The  place  was  in  the  charge  of  a 
major-domo,  a  good-natured  fellow,  and  when  he 
discovered  that  we  liked  peacocks'  feathers  for  decora- 
tive purposes  in  the  house,  he  made  it  a  custom  to 
send  us  each  year  at  the  moulting-time  large  bundles, 
whole  armfuls,  of  feathers. 

Another  curious  thing  in  the  estancia  was  a  large 
room  set  apart  for  the  display  of  trophies  sent  from 
Buenos  Ayres  by  the  Minister's  eldest  son.  I  have 
already  given  an  account  of  a  favourite  pastime  of  the 
young  gentlemen  of  the  capital — that  of  giving  battle 
to  the  night-watchmen  and  wresting  their  staffs  and 
lanterns  from  them.  Our  Minister's  heir  was  a  leader 
in  this  sport,  and  from  time  to  time  sent  consignments 


THE  TYRANT^S  FALL 


1 1 1 


of  his  trophies  to  the  country  place,  where  the  walls  of 
the  room  were  covered  with  staffs  and  festoons  of 
lanterns. 

Once  or  twice  as  a  small  boy  I  had  the  privilege  of 
meeting  this  young  gentleman  and  looked  at  him  with 
an  intense  curiosity  which  has  served  to  keep  his 
image  in  my  mind  till  now.  His  figure  was  slender 
and  graceful,  his  features  good,  and  he  had  a  rather 
long  Spanish  face;  his  eyes  were  grey-blue,  and  his 
hair  and  moustache  a  reddish  golden-brown.  It  was  a 
handsome  face,  but  with  a  curiously  repelling,  impatient, 
reckless,  almost  devilish  expression. 

I  was  at  home  again,  back  in  the  plantation  among 
my  beloved  birds,  glad  to  escape  from  the  noisy  dusty 
city  into  the  sweet  green  silences,  with  the  great  green 
plain  glittering  with  the  false  water  of  the  mirage 
spreading  around  our  shady  oasis,  and  the  fact  that 
war,  which  for  the  short  period  of  my  own  little  life 
and  for  many  long  years  before  I  was  born,  had  not 
visited  our  province,  thanks  to  Rosas  the  Tyrant,  the 
man  of  blood  and  iron,  had  now  come  to  us  did  not 
make  the  sunshine  less  sweet  and  pleasant  to  behold. 
Our  elders,  it  is  true,  showed  anxious  faces,  but  they 
were  often  anxious  about  matters  which  did  not  affect 
us  children,  and  therefore  didn't  matter.  But  by  and  by 
even  we  little  ones  were  made  tO'  realize  that  there  was 
a,  trouble  in  the  land  which  touched  us  too,  since  it 
deprived  us  of  the  companionship  of  the  native  boy 
who  was  our  particular  friend  and  guardian  during 
our  early  horseback  rambles  on  the  plain.  This  boy, 
Medardo,  or  Dardo,  was  the  fifteen-years-old  son — 
illegitimate  of  course^ — of  the  native  woman  our  English 


112  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

shepherd  had  made  his  wife.  Why  he  had  done  so 
was  a  perpetual  mystery  and  marvel  to  every  one  on 
account  of  her  person  and  temper.  The  very  thought 
of  this  poor  Natalia,  or  Dona  Nata  as  she  was  called, 
long  dead  and  turned  to  dust  in  that  far  pampa, 
troubles  my  spirit  even  now  and  gives  me  the  un- 
comfortable feeling  that  in  putting  her  portrait  on  this 
paper  I  am  doing  a  mean  thing. 

She  was  an  excessively  lean  creature,  careless,  and 
even  dirty  in  her  person,  with  slippers  but  no  stockings 
on  her  feet,  an  old  dirty  gown  of  a  coarse  blue  cotton 
stuff  and  a  large  coloured  cotton  handkerchief  or  piece 
of  calico  wound  turban-wise  about  her  head.  She  was 
of  a  yellowish  parchment  colour,  the  skin  tight-drawn 
over  the  small  bony  aquiline  features,  and  it  would 
have  seemed  like  the  face  of  a  corpse  or  mummy  but 
for  the  deeply-sunken  jet-black  eyes  burning  with  a 
troubled  fire  in  their  sockets.  There  was  a  tremor 
and  strangely  pathetic  note  in  her  thin  high-pitched 
voice,  as  of  a  woman  speaking  with  effort  between 
half -suppressed  sobs,  or  like  the  mournful  cry  of  some 
wild  bird  of  the  marshes.  Voice  and  face  were  true 
indications  of  her  anxious  mind.  She  was  in  a  per- 
petual state  of  worry  over  some  trifling  matter,  and 
when  a  real  trouble  came,  as  when  our  flock  "got 
mixed"  with  a  neighbour's  flock  and  four  or  five 
thousand  sheep  had  to  be  parted,  sheep  by  sheep, 
according  to  their  ear-marks,  or  when  her  husband 
came  home  drunk  and  tumbled  off  his  horse  at  the 
door  instead  of  dismounting  in  the  usual  manner,  she 
would  be  almost  out  of  her  mind  and  wring  her  hands 
and  shriek  and  cry  out  that  such  conduct  would  not 


THE  TYRANT'S  FALL 


be  endured  by  his  long-suffering  master,  and  they 
would  no  longer  have  a  roof  over  their  heads! 

Poor  anxious-minded  Nata,  who  moved  us  both  to 
pity  and  repulsion,  it  was  impossible  not  to  admire  her 
efforts  to  keep  her  stolid  inarticulate  husband  in  the 
right  path  and  her  intense  wild  animal-like  love  of  her 
children — the  three  dirty-faced  English-looking  off- 
spring of  her  strange  marriage,  and  Dardo,  her  first- 
born, the  son  of  the  wind.  He,  too,  was  an  interesting 
person;  small  or  short  for  his  years,  he  was  thick  and 
had  a  curiously  solid  mature  appearance,  with  a  round 
head,  wide  open,  startlingly  bright  eyes,  and  aquiline 
features  which  gave  him  a  resemblance  to  a  sparrow- 
hawk.  He  was  mature  in  mind,  too,  and  had  all  the 
horse  lore  of  the  seasoned  gaucho,  and  at  the  same 
time  he  was  like  a  child  in  his  love  of  fun  and  play, 
and  wanted  nothing  better  than  to  serve  us  as  a  per- 
petual playmate.  But  he  had  his  work,  which  was  to 
look  after  the  flock  when  the  shepherd's  services  were 
required  elsewhere;  an  easy  task  for  him  on  his  horse, 
especially  in  summer  when  for  long  hours  the  sheep 
would  stand  motionless  on  the  plain.  Dardo,  who 
was  teaching  us  to  swim,  would  then  invite  us  to  go 
to  the  river — to  one  of  two  streams  within  half  an 
hour's  ride  from  home,  where  there  were  good  bathing- 
pools!  but  always  before  starting  he  would  have  to 
go  and  ask  his  mother's  consent.  Mounting  my  pony 
I  would  follow  him  to  the  piiesto  or  shepherd's  ranche, 
only  to  be  denied  permission:  ''No,  you  are  not  to 
go  to-day:  you  must  not  think  of  such  a  thing.  I 
forbid  you  to  take  the  boys  to  the  river  this  day!" 

Then    Dardo,    turning    his    horse's    head,  would 


114  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

exclaim,  ''Oh,  caram-bam-bam-ba And  she,  seeing 
him  going,  would  rush  out  after  us,  shrieking,  "Don't 
caram-bam-bam-ba  me !  You  are  not  to  go  to  the 
river  this  day — I  forbid  it!  I  know  if  you  go  to  the 
river  this  day  there  will  be  a  terrible  calamity!  Listen 
to  me,  Dardo,  rebel,  devil  that  you  are,  you  shall  not 
go  bathing  to-day!"  And  the  cries  would  continue 
until,  breaking  into  a  gallop,  we  would  quickly  be  out 
of  earshot.  Then  Dardo  would  say,  ''Now  we'll  go 
back  to  the  house  for  the  others  and  go  to  the  river. 
You  see,  she  made  me  kneel  before  the  crucifix  and 
promise  never  to  take  you  to  bathe  without  asking  her 
consent.  And  that's  all  I've  got  to  do;  I  never 
promised  to  obey  her  commands,  so  it's  all  right." 

These  pleasant  adventures  with  Dardo  on  the  plain 
were  suddenly  put  a  stop  to  by  the  war.  One  morn- 
ing a  number  of  persons  on  foot  and  on  horseback 
were  seen  coming  to  us  over  the  green  plain  from  the 
shepherd's  ranche,  and  as  they  drew  nearer  we  recog- 
nized our  old  Alcalde  on  his  horse  as  the  leader  of  the 
procession,  and  behind  him  walked  Dona  Nata,  holding 
her  son  by  the  hand;  then  followed  others  on  foot, 
and  behind  them  all  rode  four  old  gauchos,  the  Alcalde's 
henchmen,  wearing  their  swords. 

What  matter  of  tremendous  importance  had  brought 
this  crowd  to  our  house?  The  Alcalde,  Don  Amaro 
Avalos,  was  not  only  the  representative  of  the  "authori- 
ties" in  our  parts^ — police  officer,  petty  magistrate 
of  sorts,  and  several  other  things  besides — but  a  grand 
old  man  in  himself,  and  he  looms  large  in  memory 
among  the  old  gaucho  patriarchs  in  our  neighbourhood. 
He  was  a  big  man,  about  six  feet  high,  exceedingly 


THE  TYRANT^S  FALL  115 

dignified  in  manner,  his  long  hair  and  beard  of  a 
silvery  whiteness;  he  wore  the  gaucho  costume  with  a 
great  profusion  of  silver  ornaments,  including  ponder- 
ous silver  spurs  weighing  about  four  pounds,  and  heavy 
silver  whip-handle.  As  a  rule  he  rode  on  a  big  black 
horse  which  admirably  suited  his  figure  and  the  scarlet 
colour  and  silver  of  his  costume. 

On  arrival  Don  Amaro  was  conducted  to  the 
drawing-room,  followed  by  all  the  others;  and  when  all 
were  seated,  including  the  four  old  gauchos  wearing 
swords,  the  Alcalde  addressed  my  parents  and  informed 
them  of  the  object  of  the  visit.  He  had  received  an 
imperative  order  from  his  superiors,  he  said,  to  take 
at  once  and  send  to  headquarters  twelve  more  young 
men  as  recruits  for  the  army  from  his  small  section 
of  the  district.  Now  most  of  the  young  men  had 
already  been  taken,  or  had  disappeared  from  the 
neighbourhood  in  order  to  avoid  service,  and  to  make 
up  this  last  twelve  he  had  even  to  take  boys  of  the 
age  of  this  one,  and  Medardo  would  have  to  go.  But 
this  woman  would  not  have  her  boy  taken,  and  after 
spending  many  words  in  trying  to  convince  her  that 
she  must  submit  he  had  at  last,  to  satisfy  her,  con- 
sented to  accompany  her  to  her  master^s  house  to 
discuss  the  matter  again  in  her  master  and  mistresses 
presence. 

It  was  a  long  speech,  pronounced  with  great  dignity; 
then,  almost  before  it  finished,  the  distracted  mother 
jumped  up  and  threw  herself  on  her  knees  before  my 
parents,  and  in  her  wild  tremulous  voice  began  crying 
to  them,  imploring  them  to  have  compassion  on  her 
and  help  her  to  save  her  boy  from  such  a  dreadful 


ii6  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

destiny.  What  would  he  be,  she  cried,  a  boy  of  his 
tender  years  dragged  from  his  home,  from  his  mother's 
care,  and  thrown  among  a  crowd  of  old  hardened 
soldiers,  and  of  evil-minded  men — murderers,  robbers, 
and  criminals  of  all  descriptions  drawn  from  all  the 
prisons  of  the  land  to  serve  in  the  army! 

It  was  dreadful  to  see  her  on  her  knees  wringing 
her  hands,  and  to  listen  to  her  wild  lamentable  cries; 
and  again  and  again  while  the  matter  was  being  dis- 
cussed between  the  old  Alcalde  and  my  parents,  she 
would  break  out  and  plead  with  such  passion  and 
despair  in  her  voice  and  words,  that  all  the  people 
in  the  room  were  affected  to  tears.  She  was  like  some 
wild  animal  trying  to  save  her  offspring  from  the 
hunters.  Never,  exclaimed  my  mother,  when  the 
struggle  was  over,  had  she  passed  so  painful,  so 
terrible,  an  hour!  And  the  struggle  had  all  been  in 
vain,  and  Dardo  was  taken  from  us. 

One  morning,  some  weeks  later,  the  dull  roar  from 
distant  big  guns  came  to  our  ears,  and  we  were  told 
that  a  great  battle  was  being  fought,  that  Rosas  himself 
was  at  the  head  of  his  army — a  poor  little  force  of 
25,000  men  got  together  in  hot  haste  to  oppose  a  mixed 
Argentine  and  Brazilian  force  of  about  40,000  men 
commanded  by  the  traitor  Urquiza.  During  several 
hours  of  that  anxious  day  the  dull,  heavy  sound  of 
firing  continued  and  was  like  distant  thunder:  then 
in  the  evening  came  the  tidings  of  the  overthrow  of 
the  defending  army,  and  of  the  march  of  the  enemy 
on  Buenos  Ayres  city!  On  the  following  day,  from 
dawn  to  dark,  we  were  in  the  midst  of  an  incessant 


THE  TYRANT'S  FALL 


117 


stream  of  the  defeated  men,  flying  to  the  south,  in 
small  parties  of  two  or  three  to  half  a  dozen  men, 
with  some  larger  bands,  all  in  their  scarlet  uniforms 
and  armed  with  lances  and  carbines  and  broadswords, 
many  of  the  bands  driving  large  numbers  of  horses 
before  them. 

My  father  was  warned  by  the  neighbours  that  we 
were  in  great  danger,  since  these  men  were  now 
lawless  and  would  not  hesitate  to  plunder  and  kill  in 
their  retreat,  and  that  all  riding-horses  would  certainly 
be  seized  by  them.  As  a  precaution  he  had  the  horses 
driven  in  and  concealed  in  the  plantation,  and  that 
was  all  he  would  do.  ''Oh  no,"  he  said,  with  a  laugh, 
''they  won't  hurt  us,"  and  so  we  were  all  out  and 
about  all  day  with  the  front  gate  and  all  doors  and 
windows  standing  open.  From  time  to  time  a  band 
on  tired  horses  rode  to  the  gate  and,  without  dismount- 
ing, shouted  a  demand  for  fresh  horses.  In  every  case 
he  went  out  and  talked  to  them,  always  with  a  smiling, 
pleasant  face,  and  after  assuring  them  that  he  had  no 
horses  for  them  they  slowly  and  reluctantly  took  their 
departure.* 

About  three  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  the  hottest 
hour  of  the  day,  a  troop  of  ten  men  rode  up  at 
a  gallop,  raising  a  great  cloud  of  dust,  and  coming  in 
at  the  gate  drew  rein  before  the  verandah.  My  father 
as  usual  went  out  to  meet  them,  whereupon  they 
demanded  fresh  horses  in  loud  menacing  voices. 

Indoors  we  were  all  gathered  in  the  large  sitting- 
room,  waiting  the  upshot  in  a  state  of  intense  anxiety, 
for  no  preparations  had  been  made  and  no  means  of 
defence  existed  in  the  event  of  a  sudden  attack  on 


ii8  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

the  house.  We  watched  the  proceedings  from  the 
interior,  which  was  too  much  in  shadow  for  our 
dangerous  visitors  to  see  that  they  were  only  women 
and  children  there  and  one  man,  a  visitor,  who  had 
withdrawn  to  the  further  end  of  the  room  and  sat 
leaning  back  in  an  easy  chair,  trembling  and  white 
as  a  corpse,  Vv^ith  a  naked  sword  in  his  hand.  He 
explained  to  us  afterwards,  when  the  danger  was  all 
over,  that  fortunately  he  was  an  excellent  swordsman, 
and  that  having  found  the  weapon  in  the  room,  he 
had  resolved  to  give  a  good  account  of  the  ten  ruffians 
if  they  had  made  a  rush  to  get  in. 

My  father  replied  to  these  men  as  he  had  done  to 
the  others,  assuring  them  that  he  had  no  horses  to 
give  them.  Meanwhile  we  who  were  indoors  all 
noticed  that  one  of  the  ten  men  was  an  ofificer,  a 
beardless  young  man  of  about  twenty-one  or  two, 
with  a  singularly  engaging  face.  He  took  no  part  in 
the  proceedings,  but  sat  silent  on  his  horse,  watching 
the  others  with  a  peculiar  expression,  half  contempt- 
uous and  half  anxious,  on  his  countenance.  And  he 
alone  was  unarmed,  a  circumstance  which  struck  us 
as  very  strange.  The  others  were  all  old  veterans, 
middle-aged  and  oldish  men  with  grizzled  beards,  all 
in  scarlet  jacket  and  scarlet  chiripd  and  a  scarlet  cap 
of  the  cjuaint  form  then  worn,  shaped  like  a  boat 
turned  upside  down,  with  a  horn-like  peak  in  front, 
and  beneath  the  peak  a  brass  plate  on  which  was  the 
number  of  the  regiment. 

The  men  appeared  surprised  at  the  refusal  of  horses, 
and  stated  plainly  that  they  would  not  accept  it;  at 
which  my  father  shook  his  head  and  smiled.    One  of 


THE  TYRANT'S  FALL  119 

the  men  then  asked  for  water  to  quench  his  thirst. 
Some  one  in  the  house  then  took  out  a  large  jug  of 
cold  water,  and  my  father  taking  it  handed  it  up  to  the 
man;  he  drank,  then  passed  the  jug  on  to  the  other 
thirsty  ones,  and  after  going  its  rounds  the  jug  was 
handed  back  and  the  demand  for  fresh  horses  renewed 
in  menacing  tones.  There  was  some  water  left  in  the 
jug,  and  my  father  began  pouring  it  out  in  a  thin 
stream,  making  little  circles  and  figures  on  the  dry 
dusty  ground,  then  once  more  shook  his  head  and 
smiled  very  pleasantly  on  them.  Then  one  of  the 
men,  fixing  his  eyes  on  my  father's  face,  bent  forward 
and  suddenly  struck  his  hand  violently  on  the  hilt  of 
his  broadsword  and,  rattling  the  weapon,  half  drew  it 
from  its  sheath.  This  nerve-trying  experiment  was  a 
complete  failure,  its  only  effect  being  to  make  my 
father  smile  up  at  the  man  even  more  pleasantly  than 
before,  as  if  the  little  practical  joke  had  greatly  amused 
him. 

The  strange  thing  was  that  my  father  was  not  play- 
ing a  part — that  it  was  his  nature  to  act  in  just  that 
way.  It  is  a  curious  thing  to  say  of  any  person  that 
his  highest  or  most  shining  qualities  were  nothing  but 
defects,  since,  apart  from  these  same  singular  qualities, 
he  was  just  an  ordinary  person  with  nothing  to  dis- 
tinguish him  from  his  neighbours,  excepting  perhaps 
that  he  was  not  anxious  to  get  rich  and  was  more 
neighbourly  or  more  brotherly  towards  his  fellows  than 
most  men.  The  sense  of  danger,  the  instinct  of  self- 
preservation  supposed  to  be  universal,  was  not  in  him, 
and  there  were  occasions  when  this  extraordinary  defect 
produced  the  keenest  distress  in  my  mother.    In  hot 


120  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

summers  we  were  subject  to  thunderstorms  of  an 
amazing  violence,  and  at  such  times,  when  thunder 
and  hghtning  were  nearest  together  and  most  terrify- 
ing to  everybody  else,  he  would  stand  out  of  doors 
gazing  calmly  up  at  the  sky  as  if  the  blinding  flashes 
and  world-shaking  thunder-crashes  had  some  soothing 
effect,  like  music,  on  his  mind.  One  day,  just  before 
noon,  it  was  reported  by  one  of  the  men  that  the 
saddle-horses  could  not  be  found,  and  my  father,  with 
his  spy-glass  in  his  hand,  went  out  and  ran  up  the 
wooden  stairs  to  the  mirador  or  look-out  constructed  at 
the  top  of  the  big  barn-like  building  used  for  storing 
wool.  The  mirador  was  so  high  that  standing  on  it 
one  was  able  to  see  even  over  the  tops  of  the  tall 
plantation  trees,  and  to  protect  the  looker-out  there 
was  a  high  wooden  railing  round  it,  and  against  this 
the  tall  flag-staff  was  fastened.  When  my  father  went 
up  to  the  look-out  a  terribly  violent  thunderstorm 
was  just  bursting  on  us.  The  dazzling,  almost  con- 
tinuous lightning  appeared  to  be  not  only  in  the  black 
cloud  over  the  house  but  all  round  us,  and  crash 
quickly  followed  crash,  making  the  doors  and  windows 
rattle  in  their  frames,  while  there  high  above  us  in  the 
very  midst  of  the  awful  tumult  stood  my  father  calm 
as  ever.  Not  satisfied  that  he  was  high  enough  on  the 
floor  of  the  look-out  he  had  got  up  on  the  topmost 
rail,  and  standing  on  it,  with  his  back  against  the  tall 
pole,  he  surveyed  the  open  plain  all  round  through  his 
spy-glass  in  search  of  the  lost  horses.  I  remember 
that  indoors  my  mother  with  white  terror-stricken  face 
stood  gazing  out  at  him,  and  that  the  whole  house  was 
in  a  state  of  terror,  expecting  every  moment  to  see  him 


THE  TYRANT'S  FALL 


121 


struck  by  lightning  and  hurled  down  to  the  earth 
below. 

A  second  and  in  its  results  a  more  disastrous  shining 
quality  was  a  childlike  trust  in  the  absolute  good  faith 
of  every  person  with  whom  he  came  into  business 
relations.  Things  being  what  they  are  this  inevitably 
led  to  his  ruin. 

To  return  to  our  unwelcome  visitors.  On  this 
occasion  my  father's  perfectly  cool  smiling  demeanour, 
resulting  from  his  foolhardiness,  served  him  and  the 
house  well :  it  deceived  them,  for  they  could  not  be- 
lieve that  he  would  have  acted  in  that  way  if  they 
had  not  been  watched  by  men  with  rifles  in  their  hands 
from  the  interior  who  would  open  fire  on  the  least 
hostile  movement  on  their  part. 

Suddenly  the  scowling  spokesman  of  the  troop,  with 
a  shouted  '*Vamos!"  turned  his  horse's  head  and, 
followed  by  all  the  others,  rode  out  and  broke  into  a 
gallop.  We  too  then  hurried  out,  and  from  the  screen 
of  poplar  and  black  acacia  trees  growing  at  the  side  of 
the  moat,  watched  their  movements,  and  saw,  when 
they  had  got  away  a  few  hundred  yards  from  the  gate, 
the  young  unarmed  officer  break  away  from  them  and 
start  off  at  the  greatest  speed  he  could  get  out  of  his 
horse.  The  others  quickly  gave  chase  and  at  length 
disappeared  from  sight  in  the  direction  of  the  Alcalde's 
or  local  petty  magistrate's  house,  about  a  mile  and  a 
half  away.  It  was  a  long  low  thatched  ranch  without 
trees,  and  could  not  be  seen  from  our  house  as  it  stood 
behind  a  marshy  lake  overgrown  with  all  bulrushes. 

While  we  were  straining  our  eyes  to  see  the  result 
of  the  chase,  and  after  the  hunted  man  and  his  pursuers 


122  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

had  vanished  from  sight  among  the  herds  of  cattle 
and  horses  grazing  on  the  plain,  the  tragedy  was 
being  carried  out  in  exceedingly  painful  circumstances. 
The  young  officer,  whose  home  was  more  than  a  day's 
journey  from  our  district,  had  visited  the  neighbour- 
hood on  a  former  occasion  and  remembered  that  he 
had  relations  in  it ;  and  when  he  broke  away  from  the 
men,  divining  that  it  was  their  intention  to  murder 
him,  he  made  for  the  old  Alcalde's  house.  He  suc- 
ceeded in  keeping  ahead  of  his  pursuers  until  he  arrived 
at  the  gate,  and  throwing  himself  from  his  horse  and 
rushing  into  the  house,  and  finding  the  old  Alcalde 
surrounded  by  the  women  of  the  house,  addressed  him 
as  uncle  and  claimed  his  protection.  The  Alcalde  was 
not,  strictly  speaking,  his  uncle  but  was  his  mother's 
first  cousin.  It  was  an  awful  moment:  the  nine  armed 
ruffians  were  already  standing  outside,  shouting  to  the 
owner  of  the  place  to  give  them  up  their  prisoner,  and 
threatening  to  burn  down  the  house  and  kill  all  the 
inmates  if  he  refused.  The  old  Alcalde  stood  in  the 
middle  of  the  room,  surrounded  by  a  crowd  of  women 
and  children,  his  own  two  handsome  daughters,  aged 
about  twenty  and  twenty-two  respectively,  among  them, 
fainting  with  terror  and  crying  for  him  to  save  them, 
while  the  young  officer  on  his  knees  implored  him  for 
the  sake  of  his  mother's  memory,  and  of  the  Mother 
of  God  and  of  all  he  held  sacred,  to  refuse  to  give  him 
up  to  be  slaughtered. 

The  old  man  was  not  equal  to  the  situation :  he 
trembled  and  sobbed  with  anguish,  and  at  last  faltered 
out  that  he  could  not  protect  him — that  he  must  save 
his  own  daughters  and  the  wives  and  children  of  his 


THE  TYRANT'S  FALL 


123 


neighbours  who  had  sought  refuge  in  his  house.  The 
men  outside,  hearing  how  the  argument  was  going, 
came  to  the  door,  and  finally  seizing  the  young  man 
by  the  arm  led  him  out  and  made  him  mount  his  horse 
again  and  ride  with  them.  They  rode  back  the  way 
they  had  gone  for  half  a  mile  towards  our  house,  then 
pulled  him  off  his  horse  and  cut  his  throat. 

On  the  following  day  a  mulatto  boy  who  looked 
after  the  flock  and  went  on  errands  for  the  Alcalde, 
came  to  me  and  said  that  if  I  would  mount  my  pony 
and  go  with  him  he  would  show  me  something.  It 
was  not  seldom  this  same  little  fellow  came  to  me  to 
offer  to  show  me  something,  and  it  usually  turned  out 
to  be  a  bird's  nest,  an  object  which  keenly  interested 
us  both.  I  gladly  mounted  my  pony  and  followed. 
The  broken  army  had  ceased  passing  our  way  by  now, 
and  it  was  peaceful  and  safe  once  more  on  the  great 
plain.  We  rode  about  a  mile,  and  he  then  pulled  up 
his  horse  and  pointed  to  the  turf  at  our  feet,  where  I 
saw  a  great  stain  of  blood  on  the  short  dry  grass. 
Here,  he  told  me,  was  where  they  had  cut  the  young 
officer's  throat :  the  body  had  been  taken  by  the 
Alcalde  to  his  house,  where  it  had  been  lying  since 
the  evening  before,  and  it  would  be  taken  for  burial 
next  day  to  our  nearest  village,  about  eight  miles 
distant. 

The  murder  was  the  talk  of  the  place  for  some  days, 
chiefly  on  account  of  the  painful  facts  of  the  case — 
that  the  old  Alcalde,  who  was  respected  and  even  loved 
by  every  one,  should  have  failed  in  so  pitiful  a  way  to 
make  any  attempt  at  saving  his  young  relation.  But 


124  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

the  mere  fact  that  the  soldiers  had  cut  the  throat  of 
their  officer  surprised  no  one;  it  was  a  common  thing 
in  the  case  of  a  defeat  in  those  days  for  the  men  to 
turn  upon  and  murder  their  officers.  Nor  was  throat- 
cutting  a  mere  custom  or  convention :  to  the  old  soldier 
it  was  the  only  satisfactory  way  of  finishing  of¥  your 
adversary,  or  prisoner  of  war,  or  your  officer  who 
had  been  your  tyrant,  on  the  day  of  defeat.  Their 
feeling  was  similar  to  that  of  the  man  who  is  inspired 
by  the  hunting  instinct  in  its  primitive  form,  as  de- 
scribed by  Richard  Jefferies.  To  kill  the  creatures 
with  bullets  at  a  distance  was  no  satisfaction  to  him : 
he  must  with  his  own  hands  drive  the  shaft  into  the 
quivering  flesh — he  must  feel  its  quivering  and  see 
the  blood  gush  up  beneath  his  hand.  One  smiles  at  a 
vision  of  the  gentle  Richard  Jefferies  slaughtering  wild 
cattle  in  the  palaeolithic  way,  but  that  feeling  and  desire 
which  he  describes  with  such  passion  in  his  Story  of  My 
Heart,  that  survival  of  the  past,  is  not  uncommon  in 
the  hearts  of  hunters,  and  if  we  were  ever  to  drop  out 
of  our  civilization  I  fancy  we  should  return  rather  joy- 
fully to  the  primitive  method.  And  so  in  those  dark 
times  in  the  Argentine  Republic  when,  during  half  a 
century  of  civil  strife  which  followed  on  casting  ofif  the 
Spanish  *'yoke,''  as  it  was  called,  the  people  of  the 
plains  had  developed  an  amazing  ferocity,  they  loved 
to  kill  a  man  not  with  a  bullet  but  in  a  manner  to 
make  them  know  and  feel  that  they  were  really  and 
truly  killing. 

As  a  child  those  dreadful  deeds  did  not  impress  me, 
since  I  did  not  witness  them  myself,  and  after  looking 
at  that  stain  of  blood  on  the  grass  the  subject  faded 


THE  TYRANT'S  FALL  125 

out  of  my  mind.  But  as  time  went  on  and  I  heard 
more  about  this  painful  subject  I  began  to  reahze  what 
it  meant.  The  full  horror  of  it  came  only  a  few  years 
later,  when  I  was  big  enough  to  go  about  to  the  native 
houses  and  among  the  gauchos  in  their  gatherings,  at 
cattle-partings  and  brandings,  races,  and  on  other  occa- 
sions. I  listened  to  the  conversation  of  groups  of  men 
whose  lives  had  been  mostly  spent  in  the  army,  as  a 
rule  in  guerilla  warfare,  and  the  talk  turned  with  sur- 
prising frequency  to  the  subject  of  cutting  throats. 
Not  to  waste  powder  on  prisoners  was  an  unwritten 
law  of  the  Argentine  army  at  that  period,  and  the 
veteran  gaucho  clever  with  the  knife  took  delight  in 
obeying  it.  It  always  came  as  a  relief,  I  heard  them 
say,  to  have  as  victim  a  young  man  with  a  good  neck 
after  an  experience  of  tough,  scraggy  old  throats:  with 
a  person  of  that  sort  they  were  in  no  hurry  to  finish 
the  business;  it  was  performed  in  a  leisurely,  loving 
way.  Darwin,  writing  in  praise  of  the  gaucho  in  his 
Voyage  of  a  Naturalist,  says  that  if  a  gaucho  cuts  your 
throat  he  does  it  like  a  gentleman :  even  as  a  small 
boy  I  knew  better — that  he  did  his  business  rather  like 
a  hellish  creature  revelling  in  his  cruelty.  He  would 
listen  to  all  his  captive  could  say  to  soften  his  heart — 
all  his  heartrending  prayers  and  pleadings;  and  would 
reply:  'Ah,  friend,'' — or  little  friend,  or  brother — 
"your  words  pierce  me  to  the  heart  and  I  would  gladly 
spare  you  for  the  sake  of  that  poor  mother  of  yours 
who  fed  you  with  her  milk,  and  for  your  own  sake 
too,  since  in  this  short  time  I  have  conceived  a  great 
friendship  towards  you;  but  your  beautiful  neck  is 
your  undoing,  for  how  could  I  possibly  deny  myself 


126  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

the  pleasure  of  cutting  such  a  throat — so  shapely,  so 
smooth  and  soft  and  so  white!  Think  of  the  sight 
of  warm  red  blood  gushing  from  that  white  column!" 
And  so  on,  with  wavings  of  the  steel  blade  before  the 
captive's  eyes,  until  the  end. 

When  I  heard  them  relate  such  things — and  I  am 
quoting  their  very  words,  remembered  all  these  years 
only  too  well — laughingly,  gloating  over  such  memories, 
such  a  loathing  and  hatred  possessed  me  that  ever 
afterwards  the  very  sight  of  these  men  was  enough  to 
produce  a  sensation  of  nausea,  just  as  when  in  the  dog 
days  one  inadvertently  rides  too  near  the  putrid  carcass 
of  some  large  beast  on  the  plain. 

As  I  have  said,  all  this  feeling  about  throat-cutting 
and  the  power  to  realize  and  visualize  it,  came  to  me 
by  degrees  long  after  the  sight  of  a  blood-stain  on  the 
turf  near  our  home;  and  in  like  manner  the  significance 
of  the  tyrant's  fall  and  the  mighty  changes  it  brought 
about  in  the  land  only  came  to  me  long  after  the 
event.  People  were  in  perpetual  conflict  about  the 
character  of  the  great  man.  He  was  abhorred  by 
many,  perhaps  by  most;  others  were  on  his  side  even 
for  years  after  he  had  vanished  from  their  ken,  and 
among  these  were  most  of  the  English  residents  of 
the  country,  my  father  among  them.  Quite  naturally 
I  followed  my  father  and  came  to  believe  that  all  the 
bloodshed  during  a  quarter  of  a  century,  all  the  crimes 
and  cruelties  practised  by  Rosas,  were  not  like  the 
crimes  committed  by  a  private  person,  but  were  all  for 
the  good  of  the  country,  with  the  result  that  in  Buenos 
Ayres  and  throughout  our  province  there  had  been  a 
long  period  of  peace  and  prosperity,  and  that  all  this 


THE  TYRANT'S  FALL 


127 


ended  with  his  fall  and  was  succeeded  by  years  of  fresh 
revolutionary  outbreaks  and  bloodshed  and  anarchy. 
Another  thing  about  Rosas  which  made  me  ready  to 
fall  in  with  my  father's  high  opinion  of  him  was  the 
number  of  stories  about  him  which  appealed  to  my 
childish  imagination.  Many  of  these  related  to  his 
adventures  when  he  would  disguise  himself  as  a  person 
of  humble  status  and  prowl  about  the  city  by  night, 
especially  in  the  squalid  quarters,  where  he  would  make 
the  acquaintance  of  the  very  poor  in  their  hovels.  Most 
of  these  stories  were  probably  inventions  and  need  not 
be  told  here;  but  there  was  one  which  I  must  say  some- 
thing about  because  it  is  a  bird  story  and  greatly  ex- 
cited my  boyish  interest. 

I  was  often  asked  by  our  gaucho  neighbours  when  I 
talked  with  them  about  birds — and  they  all  knew  that 
that  subject  interested  me  above  all  others — if  I  had 
ever  heard  el  canto,  or  el  cuento  del  Bien-te-veo.  That 
is  to  say,  the  ballad  or  tale  of  the  Bien-te-veo — a  species 
of  tyrant-bird  quite  common  in  the  country,  with  a 
brown  back  and  sulphur-yellow  under  parts,  a  crest  on 
its  head,  and  face  barred  with  black  and  white.  It  is 
a  little  larger  than  our  butcher-bird  and,  like  it,  is 
partly  rapacious  in  its  habits.  The  barred  face  and 
long  kingfisher-like  beak  give  it  a  peculiarly  knowing 
or  cunning  look,  and  the  effect  is  heightened  by  the 
long  trisyllabic  call  constantly  uttered  by  the  bird, 
from  which  it  derives  its  name  of  Bien-te-veo,  which 
means  I-can-see-you.  He  is  always  letting  you  know 
that  he  is  there,  that  he  has  got  his  eye  on  you,  so 
that  you  had  better  be  careful  about  your  actions. 

The  Bien-te-veo,  I  need  hardly  say,  was  one  of  my 


128  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

feathered  favourites,  and  I  begged  my  gaucho  friends 
to  tell  me  this  cuento,  but  although  I  met  scores  of 
men  who  had  heard  it,  not  one  remembered  it:  they 
could  only  say  that  it  was  very  long — very  few  persons 
could  remember  such  a  long  story;  and  I  further 
gathered  that  it  was  a  sort  of  history  of  the  bird's 
life  and  his  adventures  among  the  other  birds;  that 
the  Bien-te-veo  was  always  doing  clever  naughty 
things  and  getting  into  trouble,  but  invariably  escaping 
the  penalty.  From  all  I  could  hear  it  was  a  tale  of 
the  Reynard  the  Fox  order,  or  like  the  tales  told  by 
the  gauchos  of  the  armadillo  and  how  that  quaint 
little  beast  always  managed  to  fool  his  fellow-animals, 
especially  the  fox,  who  regarded  himself  as  the  cleverest 
of  all  the  beasts  and  who  looked  on  his  honest,  dull- 
witted  neighbour  the  armadillo  as  a  born  fool.  Old 
gauchos  used  to  tell  me  that  twenty  or  more  3^ears 
ago  one  often  met  with  a  reciter  of  ballads  who  could 
relate  the  whole  story  of  the  Bien-te-veo.  Good  re- 
citers were  common  enough  in  my  time:  at  dances  it 
was  always  possible  to  find  one  or  two  to  amuse  the 
company  with  long  poems  and  ballads  in  the  intervals 
of  dancing,  and  first  and  last  I  questioned  many  who 
had  this  talent,  but  failed  to  find  one  who  knew  the 
famous  bird-ballad,  and  in  the  end  I  gave  up  the 
quest. 

The  story  invariably  told  was  that  a  man  convicted 
of  some  serious  crime  and  condemned  to  suffer  the 
last  penalty,  and  left,  as  the  custom  then  was,  for 
long  months  in  the  gaol  in  Buenos  Ayres,  amused 
himself  by  composing  the  story  of  the  Bien-te-veo, 
and  thinking  well  of  it  he  made  a  present  of  the 


THE  TYRANT'S  FALL  129 

manuscript  to  the  gaoler  in  acknowledgment  of  some 
kindness  he  had  received  from  that  person.  The 
condemned  man  had  no  money  and  no  friends  to 
interest  themselves  on  his  behalf ;  but  it  v^as  not  the 
custom  at  that  time  to  execute  a  criminal  as  soon  as  he 
was  condemned.  The  prison  authorities  preferred  to 
wait  until  there  were  a  dozen  or  so  to  execute;  these 
would  then  be  taken  out,  ranged  against  a  wall  of  the 
prison,  opposite  a  file  of  soldiers  with  muskets  in  their 
hands,  and  shot,  the  soldiers  after  the  first  discharge 
reloading  their  weapons  and  going  up  to  the  fallen 
men  to  finish  off  those  who  were  still  kicking.  This 
was  the  prospect  our  prisoner  had  to  look  forward  to. 
Meanwhile  his  ballad  was  being  circulated  and  read 
with  immense  delight  by  various  persons  in  authority, 
and  one  of  these  who  was  privileged  to  approach  the 
Dictator,  thinking  it  would  af¥ord  him  a  little  amuse- 
ment, took  the  ballad  and  read  it  to  him.  Rosas  was 
so  pleased  with  it  that  he  pardoned  the  condemned 
man  and  ordered  his  liberation. 

All  this,  I  conjectured,  must  have  happened  at  least 
twenty  years  before  I  was  born.  I  also  concluded 
that  the  ballad  had  never  been  printed,  otherwise 
I  would  most  probably  have  found  it;  but  some  copies 
in  writing  had  evidently  been  made  and  it  had  become 
a  favourite  composition  with  the  reciters  at  festive 
gatherings,  but  had  now  gone  out  and  was  hopelessly 
lost. 

These,  as  I  have  already  intimated,  were  but  the 
little  things  that  touched  a  child's  fancy;  there  was 
another  romantic  circumstance  in  the  life  of  Rosas 
which  appealed  to  everybody,  adult  as  well  as  child. 


130  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

He  was  the  father  of  Dona  Manuela,  known  by  the 
affectionate  diminutive,  Manuelita,  throughout  the 
land,  and  loved  and  admired  by  all,  even  by  her  father's 
enemies,  for  her  compassionate  disposition.  Perhaps 
she  was  the  one  being  in  the  world  for  whom  he,  a 
widower  and  lonely  man,  cherished  a  great  tenderness. 
It  is  certain  that  her  power  over  him  was  very  great 
and  that  many  lives  that  would  have  been  taken  for 
State  reasons  were  saved  by  her  interposition.  It  was 
a  beautiful  and  fearful  part  that  she,  a  girl,  was  called 
on  to  play  on  that  dreadful  stage;  and  very  naturally 
it  was  said  that  she,  who  was  the  very  spirit  of  mercy 
incarnate,  could  not  have  acted  as  the  loving,  devoted 
daughter  to  one  who  was  the  monster  of  cruelty  his 
enemies  proclaimed  him  to  be. 

Here,  in  conclusion  to  this  chapter,  I  had  intended 
to  introduce  a  few  sober  reflections  on  the  character  of 
Rosas — certainly  the  greatest  and  most  interesting  of 
all  the  South  America  Caudillos,  or  leaders,  who  ros^ 
to  absolute  power  during  the  long  stormy  period  that 
followed  on  the  war  of  independence — reflections  which 
came  to  me  later,  in  my  teens,  when  I  began  to  think 
for  myself  and  form  my  own  judgments.  This  I  now 
perceive  would  be  a  mistake,  if  not  an  impertinence, 
since  I  have  not  the  temper  of  mind  for  such  exercises 
and  should  give  too  much  importance  to  certain  singular 
acts  on  the  Dictator's  part  which  others  would  perhaps 
regard  as  political  errors,  or  due  to  sudden  fits  of  pas- 
sion or  petulance  rather  than  as  crimes.  And  some  of 
his  acts  are  inexplicable,  as  for  instance  the  public  execu- 
tion in  the  interests  of  religion  and  morality  of  a  charm- 
ing young  lady  of  good  family  and  her  lover,  the  hand- 


THE  TYRANT^S  FALL  131 

some  young  priest  who  had  captivated  the  town  with 
his  eloquence.  Why  he  did  it  will  remain  a  puzzle 
for  ever.  There  were  many  other  acts  which  to 
foreigners  and  to  those  born  in  later  times  might  seem 
the  result  of  insanity,  but  which  were  really  the  outcome 
of  a  peculiar,  sardonic,  and  somewhat  primitive  sense  of 
humour  on  his  part  which  appeals  powerfully  to  the 
men  of  the  plains,  the  gauchos,  among  whom  Rosas 
lived  from  boyhood,  when  he  ran  away  from  his  father's 
house,  and  by  whose  aid  he  eventually  rose  to  supreme 
power. 

All  these  things  do  not  much  affect  the  question  of 
Rosas  as  a  ruler  and  his  place  in  history.  Time,  the 
old  god,  says  the  poet,  invests  all  things  with  honour, 
and  makes  them  white.  The  poet-prophet  is  not  to  be 
taken  literally,  but  his  words  so  undoubtedly  contain  a 
tremendous  truth.  And  here,  then,  one  may  let  the 
question  rest.  If  after  half  a  century,  and  more,  the 
old  god  is  still  sitting,  chin  on  hand,  revolving  this 
question,  it  would  be  as  well  to  give  him,  say,  another 
fifty  years  to  make  up  his  mind  and  pronounce  a 
final  judgment. 


CHAPTER  IX 


Our  Neighbours  at  the  Poplars 

Homes  on  the  great  green  plain  — Making  the  acquaintance 
of  our  neighbours — The  attraction  of  birds — Los  Alamos 
and  the  old  lady  of  the  house — Her  treatment  of  St. 
Anthony — The  strange  Barboza  family — The  man  of 
blood — Great  fighters — Barboza  as  a  singer — ^A  great 
quarrel  but  no  fight — A  cattle-marking — Dona  Lucia 
del  Ombu — ^A  feast — Barboza  sings  and  is  insulted  by 
EL  Rengo — Refuses  to  fight — The  two  kinds  of  fighters — 
A  poor  little  angel  on  horseback — My  feehng  for  Anje- 
Hta — Boys  unable  to  express  sympathy — ^A  quarrel 
with  a  friend — Enduring  image  of  a  little  girl. 

In  a  former  chapter  on  the  aspects  of  the  plain  I 
described  the  groves  and  plantations,  which  marked  the 
sites  of  the  estancia  houses,  as  appearing  like  banks  or 
islands  of  trees,  blue  in  the  distance,  on  the  vast  flat 
sea-like  plain.  Some  of  these  were  many  miles  away 
and  were  but  faintly  visible  on  the  horizon,  others  nearer, 
and  the  nearest  of  all  was  but  two  miles  from  us,  on  the 
hither  side  of  that  shallow  river  to  which  my  first  long 
walk  was  taken,  where  I  was  amazed  and  enchanted 
with  my  first  sight  of  flamingoes.  This  place  was 
called  Los  Alamos,  or  The  Poplars,  a  name  which 
would  have  suited  a  large  majority  of  the  estancia 
houses  with  trees  growing  about  them,  seeing  that  the 

132 


OUR  NEIGHBOURS 


133 


tall  Lombardy  poplar  was  almost  always  there  in  long 
rows  towering  high  above  all  other  trees  and  a  land- 
mark in  the  district.  It  is  about  the  people  dwelling  at 
Los  Alamos  I  have  now  to  write. 

When  I  first  started  on  my  riding  rambles  about  the 
plain  I  began  to  make  the  acquaintance  of  some  of  our 
nearest  neighbours,  but  at  first  it  was  a  slow  process. 
As  a  child  I  was  excessively  shy  of  strangers,  and  I 
also  greatly  feared  the  big  savage  house-dogs  that  would 
rush  out  to  attack  any  one  approaching  the  gate.  But 
a  house  with  a  grove  or  plantation  fascinated  me,  for 
where  there  were  trees  there  were  birds,  and  I  had 
soon  made  the  discovery  that  you  could  sometimes 
meet  with  birds  of  a  new  kind  in  a  plantation  quite 
near  to  your  own.  Little  by  little  I  found  out  that 
the  people  were  invariably  friendly  towards  a  small  boy, 
even  the  child  of  an  alien  and  heretic  race;  also  that 
the  dogs  in  spite  of  all  their  noise  and  fury  never  really 
tried  to  pull  me  off  my  horse  and  tear  me  to  pieces. 
In  this  way,  thinking  of  and  looking  only  for  the  birds, 
I  became  acquainted  with  some  of  the  people  indi- 
vidually, and  as  I  grew  to  know  them  better  from  year 
to  year  I  sometimes  became  interested  in  them  too,  and 
in  this  and  three  or  four  succeeding  chapters  I  will 
describe  those  I  knew  best  or  that  interested  me  the 
most.  Not  only  as  I  first  knew  or  began  to  knov:  them 
in  my  seventh  year,  but  in  several  instances  I  shall  be 
able  to  trace  their  lives  and  fortunes  for  some  years 
further  on. 

When  out  riding  I  went  oftenest  in  the  direction  of 
Los  Alamos,  which  was  west  of  us,  or  as  the  gauchos 
would  say,  ''on  the  side  where  the  sun  sets.''  For 


134  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

just  behind  the  plantation,  enclosed  in  its  rows  of  tall 
old  poplars,  was  that  bird-haunted  stream  which  was 
an  irresistible  attraction.  The  sight  of  running  water, 
too,  was  a  never-failing  joy,  also  the  odours  which 
greeted  me  in  that  moist  green  place — odours  earthy, 
herby,  fishy,  flowery,  and  even  birdy,  particularly  that 
peculiar  musky  odour  given  out  on  hot  days  by  large 
flocks  of  the  glossy  ibis. 

The  person — owner  or  tenant,  I  forget  which — who 
lived  in  the  house  was  an  old  woman  named  Dona 
Pascuala,  whom  I  never  saw  without  a  cigar  in  her 
mouth.  Her  hair  was  white,  and  her  thousand- 
wrinkled  face  was  as  brown  as  the  cigar,  and  she  had 
fun-loving  eyes,  a  loud  authoritative  voice  and  a 
masterful  manner,  and  she  was  esteemed  by  her  neigh- 
bours as  a  wise  and  good  woman.  I  was  shy  of  her 
and  avoided  the  house  while  anxious  to  get  peeps  into 
the  plantation  to  watch  the  birds  and  look  for  nests,  as 
whenever  she  caught  sight  of  me  she  would  not  let  me 
of¥  without  a  sharp  cross-examination  as  to  my  motives 
and  doings.  She  would  also  have  a  hundred  questions 
besides  about  the  family,  how  they  were,  what  they 
were  all  doing,  and  whether  it  was  really  true  that  we 
drank  cofifee  every  morning  for  breakfast;  also  if  it 
was  true  that  all  of  us  children,  even  the  girls,  when 
big  enough  were  going  to  be  taught  to  read  the  al- 
manac. 

I  remember  once  when  we  had  been  having  a  long 
spell  of  wet  weather,  and  the  low-lying  plain  about 
Los  Alamos  was  getting  flooded,  she  came  to  visit  my 
mother  and  told  her  reassuringly  that  the  rain  would 
not  last  much  longer.    St.  Anthony  was  the  saint  she 


OUR  NEIGHBOURS  135 

was  devoted  to,  and  she  had  taken  his  image  from  its 
place  in  her  bedroom  and  tied  a  string  round  its  legs 
and  let  it  down  the  well  and  left  it  there  with  its  head 
in  the  water.  He  was  her  own  saint,  she  said,  and 
after  all  her  devotion  to  him,  and  all  the  candles  and 
flowers,  this  was  how  he  treated  her!  It  was  all  very 
well,  she  told  her  saint,  to  amuse  himself  by  causing 
the  rain  to  fall  for  days  and  weeks  just  to  find  out 
whether  men  would  be  drowned  or  turn  themselves 
into  frogs  to  save  themselves:  now  she.  Dona  Pas- 
cuala,  was  going  to  find  out  how  he  liked  it.  There,  with 
his  head  in  the  water,  he  would  have  to  hang  in  the 
well  until  the  weather  changed. 

Four  years  later,  in  my  tenth  year.  Dona  Pascuala 
moved  away  and  was  succeeded  at  Los  Alamos  by  a 
family  named  Barboza:  strange  people!  Half  a  dozen 
brothers  and  sisters,  one  or  two  married,  and  one,  the 
head  and  leader  of  the  tribe,  or  family,  a  big  man  aged 
about  forty  with  fierce  eagle-like  eyes  under  bushy 
black  eyebrows  that  looked  like  tufts  of  feathers.  But 
his  chief  glory  was  an  immense  crow-black  beard,  of 
which  he  appeared  to  be  excessively  proud  and  was 
usually  seen  stroking  it  in  a  slow  deliberate  manner, 
now  with  one  hand,  then  with  both,  pulling  it  out, 
dividing  it,  then  spreading  it  over  his  chest  to  display 
its  full  magnificence.  He  wore  at  his  waist,  in  front, 
a  knife  or  facon^  with  a  sword-shaped  hilt  and  a  long 
curved  blade  about  two-thirds  the  length  of  a  sword. 

He  was  a  great  fighter:  at  all  events  he  came  to  our 
neighbourhood  with  that  reputation,  and  I  at  that  time, 
at  the  age  of  nine,  like  my  elder  brothers  had  come  to 
take  a  keen  interest  in  the  fighting  gaucho.    A  duel 


136  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

between  two  men  with  knives,  their  ponchas  wrapped 
round  their  left  arms  and  used  as  shields,  was  a  thrilling 
spectacle  to  us;  I  had  already  witnessed  several  en- 
counters of  this  kind;  but  these  were  fights  of  ordinary 
or  small  men  and  were  very  small  affairs  compared  with 
the  encounters  of  the  famous  fighters,  about  which  we 
had  news  from  time  to  time.  Now  that  we  had  one 
of  the  genuine  big  ones  among  us  it  would  perhaps  be 
our  great  good  fortune  to  witness  a  real  big  fight;  for 
sooner  or  later  some  champion  duellist  from  a  distance 
would  appear  to  challenge  our  man,  or  else  some  one 
of  our  own  neighbours  would  rise  up  one  day  to  dispute 
his  claim  to  be  cock  of  the  walk.  But  nothing  of  the 
kind  happened,  although  on  two  occasions  I  thought 
the  wished  moment  had  come. 

The  first  occasion  was  at  a  big  gathering  of  gauchos 
when  Barboza  was  asked  and  graciously  consented  to 
sing  a  decima — a  song  or  ballad  consisting  of  four  ten- 
line  stanzas.  Now  Barboza  was  a  singer  but  not  a 
player  on  the  guitar,  so  that  an  accompanist  had  to  be 
called  for.  A  stranger  at  the  meeting  quickly  re- 
sponded to  the  call.  Yes,  he  could  play  to  any  man's 
singing — any  tune  he  liked  to  call.  He  was  a  big, 
loud-voiced,  talkative  man,  not  known  to  any  person 
present;  he  was  a  passer-by,  and  seeing  a  crowd  at  a 
rancho  had  ridden  up  and  joined  them,  ready  to  take  a 
hand  in  whatever  work  or  games  might  be  going  on. 
Taking  the  guitar  he  settled  down  by  Barboza's  side 
and  began  tuning  the  instrument  and  discussing  the 
question  of  the  air  to  be  played.  And  this  was  soon 
settled. 

Here  I  must  pause  to  remark  that  Barboza,  although 


OUR  NEIGHBOURS 


137 


almost  as  famous  for  his  decimas  as  for  his  sanguinary 
duels,  was  not  what  one  would  call  a  musical  person. 
His  singing  voice  was  inexpressibly  harsh,  like  that,  for 
example,  of  the  carrion  crow  when  that  bird  is  most 
vocal  in  its  love  season  and  makes  the  woods  resound 
with  its  prolonged  grating  metallic  calls.  The  interest- 
ing point  was  that  his  songs  were  his  own  composition 
and  were  recitals  of  his  strange  adventures,  mixed  with 
his  thoughts  and  feelings  about  things  in  general — his 
philosophy  of  life.  Probably  if  I  had  these  composi- 
tions before  me  now  in  manuscript  they  would  strike 
me  as  dreadfully  crude  stuff;  nevertheless  I  am  sorry 
I  did  not  write  some  of  them  down  and  that  I  can  only 
recall  a  few  lines. 

The  decima  he  now  started  to  sing  related  to  his  early 
experiences,  and  swaying  his  body  from  side  to  side  and 
bending  forward  until  his  beard  was  all  over  his  knees 
he  began  in  his  raucous  voice: 

En  el  ano  mil  ochocientos  y  quarenta, 
Quando  citaron  todos  los  enrolados, 

which,  roughly  translated,  means: 

Eighteen  hundred  and  forty  was  the  year 
When  all  the  enrolled  were  cited  to  appear. 

Thus  far  he  had  got  when  the  guitarist,  smiting  angrily 
on  the  strings  with  his  palm,  leaped  to  his  feet,  shout- 
ing, "No,  no — no  more  of  that!  What!  do  you  sing 
to  me  of  1840 — that  cursed  year!  I  refuse  to  play  to 
you!  Nor  will  I  listen  to  you,  nor  will  I  allow  any 
person  to  sing  of  that  year  and  that  event  in  my 
presence." 


138  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

Naturally  every  one  was  astonished,  and  the  first 
thought  was,  What  will  happen  now?  Blood  would 
assuredly  flow,  and  I  was  there  to  see — and  how  my 
elder  brothers  would  envy  me! 

Barboza  rose  scowling  from  his  seat,  and  dropping 
his  hand  on  the  hilt  of  his  facon  said :  *'Who  is  this 
who  forbids  me,  Basilio  Barboza,  to  sing  of  1840?" 

''I  forbid  you!"  shouted  the  stranger  in  a  rage  and 
smiting  his  breast.  ''Do  you  know  what  it  is  to  me 
to  hear  that  date — that  fatal  year?  It  is  like  the  stab 
of  a  knife.  I,  a  boy,  was  of  that  year;  and  when  the 
fifteen  years  of  my  slavery  and  misery  were  over  there 
was  no  longer  a  roof  to  shelter  me,  nor  father  nor 
mother  nor  land  nor  cattle!'' 

Every  one  instantly  understood  the  case  of  this  poor 
man,  half  crazed  at  the  sudden  recollection  of  his 
wasted  and  ruined  life,  and  it  did  not  seem  right  that 
he  should  bleed  and  perhaps  die  for  such  a  cause,  and 
all  at  once  there  was  a  rush  and  the  crowd  thrust  itself 
between  him  and  his  antagonist  and  hustled  him  a 
dozen  yards  away.  Then  one  in  the  crowd,  an  old 
man,  shouted:  "Do  you  think,  friend,  that  you  are 
the  only  one  in  this  gathering  who  lost  his  liberty  and 
all  he  possessed  on  earth  in  that  fatal  year?  I,  too, 
suffered  as  you  have  suffered  " 

''And  I!"  "And  I!"  shouted  others,  and  while 
this  noisy  demonstration  was  going  on  some  of  those 
who  were  pressing  close  to  the  stranger  began  to  ask 
him  if  he  knew  who  the  man  was  he  had  forbidden  to 
sing  of  1840?  Had  he  never  heard  of  Barboza,  the 
celebrated  fighter  who  had  killed  so  many  men  in 
fights? 


OUR  NEIGHBOURS  139 

Perhaps  he  had  heard  and  did  not  wish  to  die  just 
yet:  at  all  events  a  change  came  over  his  spirit;  he 
became  more  rational  and  even  apologetic,  and  Barboza 
graciously  accepted  the  assurance  that  he  had  no  desire 
to  provoke  a  quarrel. 

And  so  there  was  no  fight  after  all! 

The  second  occasion  was  about  two  years  later — 
a  long  period,  during  which  there  had  been  a  good 
many  duels  with  knives  in  our  neighbourhood;  but 
Barboza  was  not  in  any  of  them,  no  person  had  come 
forward  to  challenge  his  supremacy.  It  is  commonly 
said  among  the  gauchos  that  when  a  man  has  proved 
his  prowess  by  killing  a  few  of  his  opponents,  he  is 
thereafter  permitted  to  live  in  peace. 

One  day  I  attended  a  cattle-marking  at  a  small 
native  estancia  a  few  miles  from  home,  owned  by  an 
old  woman  whom  I  used  to  think  the  oldest  person 
in  the  world  as  she  hobbled  about  supporting  herself 
v/ith  two  sticks,  bent  nearly  double,  with  her  half- 
blind,  colourless  eyes  always  fixed  on  the  ground. 
But  she  had  granddaughters  living  with  her  who 
were  not  bad-looking:  the  eldest,  Antonia,  a  big  loud- 
voiced  young  woman,  known  as  the  "white  mare'* 
on  account  of  the  whiteness  of  her  skin  and  large  size, 
and  three  others.  It  was  not  strange  that  cattle- 
branding  at  this  estancia  brought  all  the  men  and 
youths  for  leagues  around  to  do  a  service  to  the 
venerable  Dona  Lucia  del  Ombu.  That  was  what  she 
was  called,  because  there  was  a  solitary  grand  old 
ombu  tree  growing  about  a  hundred  yards  from  the 
house — a  well-known  landmark  in  the  district.  There 
were  also  half  a  dozen  weeping  willows  close  to  the 


140  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

house,  but  no  plantation,  no  garden,  and  no  ditch  or 
enclosure  of  any  kind.  The  old  mud-built  rancho, 
thatched  with  rushes,  stood  on  the  level  naked  plain; 
it  was  one  of  the  old  decayed  establishments,  and  the 
cattle  were  not  many,  so  that  by  midday  the  work 
was  done  and  the  men,  numbering  about  forty  or 
fifty,  trooped  to  the  house  to  be  entertained  at  dinner. 

As  the  day  was  hot  and  the  indoor  accommodation 
insufficient,  the  tables  were  in  the  shade  of  the  willows, 
and  there  we  had  our  feast  of  roast  and  boiled  meat, 
with  bread  and  wine  and  big  dishes  of  aros  con  leche — 
rice  boiled  in  milk  with  sugar  and  cinnamon.  Next 
to  cumr-iin-seed  cinnamon  is  the  spice  best  loved  of 
the  gaucho :  he  will  ride  long  leagues  to  get  it. 

The  dinner  over  and  tables  cleared,  the  men  and 
youths  disposed  themselves  on  the  benches  and  chairs 
and  on  their  spread  ponchos  on  the  ground,  and 
started  smoking  and  conversing.  A  guitar  was  pro- 
duced, and  Barboza  being  present,  surrounded  as 
usual  by  a  crowd  of  his  particular  friends  or  parasites, 
all  eagerly  listening  to  his  talk  and  applauding  his 
sallies  with  bursts  of  laughter,  he  was  naturally  firs! 
asked  to  sing.  The  accompanist  in  this  case  was 
Goyo  Montes,  a  little  thick-set  gaucho  with  round 
staring  blue  eyes  set  in  a  round  pinky-brown  face, 
and  the  tune  agreed  on  was  one  known  as  La  Lechera — 
the  Milkmaid. 

Then,  while  the  instrument  was  being  tuned  and 
Barboza  began  to  sway  his  body  about,  and  talking 
ceased,  a  gaucho  named  Marcos  but  usually  called 
El  Rengo  on  account  of  his  lameness,  pushed  himself 
into  the  crowd  surrounding  the  great  man  and  seated 


OUR  NEIGHBOURS  141 

himself  on  a  table  and  put  his  foot  of  his  lame  leg  on 
the  bench  below. 

El  Rengo  was  a  strange  being,  a  man  with  remark- 
ably fine  aquiline  features,  piercing  black  eyes,  and 
long  black  hair.  As  a  youth  he  had  distinguished 
himself  among  his  fellow-gauchos  by  his  daring  feats 
of  horsemanship,  mad  adventures,  and  fights;  then 
he  met  with  the  accident  which  lamed  him  for  life 
and  at  the  same  time  saved  him  from  the  army; 
when,  at  a  cattle-parting,  he  was  thrown  from  his 
horse  and  gored  by  a  furious  bull,  the  animal's  horn 
having  been  driven  deep  into  his  thigh.  From  that 
time  Marcos  was  a  man  of  peace  and  was  liked  and 
respected  by  every  one  as  a  good  neighbour  and  a 
good  fellow.  He  was  also  admired  for  the  peculiarly 
amusing  way  of  talking  he  had,  when  in  the  proper 
mood,  which  was  usually  when  he  was  a  little  ex- 
hilarated by  drink.  His  eyes  would  sparkle  and  his 
face  light  up,  and  he  would  set  his  listeners  laughing 
at  the  queer  way  in  which  he  would  play  with  his 
subject;  but  there  was  always  some  mockery  and 
bitterness  in  it  which  served  to  show  that  something 
of  the  dangerous  spirit  of  his  youth  still  survived 
in  him. 

On  this  occasion  he  was  in  one  of  his  most  wilful, 
mocking,  reckless  moods,  and  was  no  sooner  seated 
than  he  began  smilingly,  in  his  quiet  conversational 
tone,  to  discuss  the  question  of  the  singer  and  the 
tune.  Yes,  he  said,  the  Milkmaid  was  a  good  tune, 
but  another  name  to  it  would  have  suited  the  subject 
better.  Oh,  the  subject!  Any  one  might  guess  what 
that  would  be.    The  words  mattered  more  than  the 


142  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

air.  For  here  we  had  before  us  not  a  small  sweet 
singer,  a  goldfinch  in  a  cage,  but  a  cock — a  fighting 
cock  with  well-trimmed  comb  and  tail  and  a  pair  of 
sharp  spurs  to  its  feet.  Listen,  friends,  he  is  now 
about  to  flap  his  wings  and  crow. 

I  was  leaning  against  the  table  on  which  he  sat 
and  began  to  think  it  was  a  dangerous  place  for  me, 
since  I  was  certain  that  every  word  was  distinctly 
heard  by  Barboza;  yet  he  made  no  sign,  but  went 
on  swaying  from  side  to  side  as  if  no  mocking  word 
had  reached  him,  then  launched  out  in  one  of  his 
most  atrocious  decimas^  autobiographical  and  philo- 
sophical. In  the  first  stanza  he  mentions  that  he  had 
slain  eleven  men,  but  using  a  poet's  license  he  states 
the  fact  in  a  roundabout  way,  saying  that  he  slew  six 
men,  and  then  five  more,  making  eleven  in  all : 

Seis  muertes  e  hecho  y  cinco  son  once. 

which  may  be  paraphrased  thus: 

Six  men  had  I  sent  to  hades  or  heaven, 
Then  added  five  more  to  make  them  eleven. 

The  stanza  ended,  Marcos  resumed  his  comments. 
What  I  desire  to  know,  said  he,  is,  why  eleven?  It  is 
not  the  proper  number  in  this  case.  One  more  is 
wanted  to  make  the  full  dozen.  He  who  rests  at 
eleven  has  not  completed  his  task  and  should  not 
boast  of  what  he  has  done.  Here  am  I  at  his  service: 
here  is  a  life  worth  nothing  to  any  one  waiting  to  be 
taken  if  he  is  willing  and  has  the  power  to  take  it. 

This  was  a  challenge  direct  enough,  yet  strange  to 
say  no  sudden  furious  action  followed,  no  flashing  of 


OUR  NEIGHBOURS 


143 


steel  and  blood  splashed  on  table  and  benches;  nor 
was  there  the  faintest  sign  of  emotion  in  the  singer's 
face,  or  any  tremor  or  change  in  his  voice  when  he 
resumed  his  singing.  And  so  it  went  on  to  the  end — • 
boastful  stanza  and  insulting  remarks  from  Marcos; 
and  by  the  time  the  decima  ended  a  dozen  or  twenty 
men  had  forced  themselves  in  between  the  two  so 
that  there  could  be  no  fight  on  this  occasion. 

Among  those  present  was  an  old  gaucho  who  took  a 
peculiar  interest  in  me  on  account  of  my  bird  lore  and 
who  used  to  talk  and  expound  gaucho  philosophy  to 
me  in  a  fatherly  way.  Meeting  him  a  day  or  two 
later  I  remarked  I  did  not  think  Barboza  deserving  of 
his  fame  as  a  fighter.  I  thought  him  a  coward.  No, 
he  said,  he  was  not  a  coward.  He  could  have  killed 
Marcos,  but  he  considered  that  it  would  be  a  mistake, 
since  it  would  add  nothing  to  his  reputation  and  would 
probably  make  him  disliked  in  the  district.  That  was 
all  very  well,  I  replied,  but  how  could  any  one  who 
was  not  a  poltroon  endure  to  be  publicly  insulted  and 
challenged  without  flying  into  a  rage  and  going  for  his 
enemy  ? 

He  smiled  and  answered  that  I  was  an  Ignorant  boy 
and  would  understand  these  things  better  some  day, 
after  knowing  a  good  many  fighters.  There  were 
some,  he  said,  who  were  men  of  fiery  temper,  who 
would  fly  at  and  kill  any  one  for  the  slightest  cause — 
an  idle  or  imprudent  v/ord  perhaps.  There  were  others 
of  a  cool  temper  whose  ambition  it  was  to  be  great 
fighters,  who  fought  and  killed  people  not  because  they 
hated  or  were  in  a  rage  with  them,  but  for  the  sake  of 
the  fame  it  would  give  them.    Barboza  was  one  of  this 


144  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

cool  kind,  who  when  he  fought  killed,  and  he  was  not 
to  be  drawn  into  a  fight  by  any  ordinary  person  or  any 
fool  who  thought  proper  to  challenge  him. 

Thus  spoke  my  mentor  and  did  not  wholly  remove 
my  doubts.  But  I  must  now  go  back  to  the  earlier 
date,  when  this  strange  family  were  newly  come  to  our 
neighbourhood. 

All  of  the  family  appeared  proud  of  their  strangeness 
and  of  the  reputation  of  their  fighting  brother,  their 
protector  and  chief.  No  doubt  he  was  an  unspeakable 
ruffian,  and  although  I  was  accustomed  to  ruffians  even 
as  a  child  and  did  not  find  that  they  differed  much 
from  other  men,  this  one  with  his  fierce  piercing  eyes 
and  cloud  of  black  beard  and  hair,  somehow  made  me 
uncomfortable,  and  I  accordingly  avoided  Los  Alamos. 
I  disliked  the  whole  tribe,  except  a  little  girl  of  about 
eight,  a  child,  it  was  said,  of  one  of  the  unmarried 
sisters.  I  never  discovered  which  of  her  aunts,  as  she 
called  all  these  tall,  white-faced  heavy-browed  women, 
was  her  mother.  I  used  to  see  her  almost  every  day, 
for  though  a  child  she  was  out  on  horseback  early  and 
late,  riding  barebacked  and  boy  fashion,  flying  about 
the  plain,  now  to  drive  in  the  horses,  now  to  turn  back 
the  flock  when  it  was  getting  too  far  afield,  then  the 
cattle,  and  finally  to  ride  on  errands  to  neighbours' 
houses  or  to  buy  groceries  at  the  store.  I  can  see  her 
now  at  full  gallop  on  the  plain,  bare-footed  and  bare- 
legged, in  her  thin  old  cotton  frock,  her  raven-black 
hair  flying  loose  behind.  The  strangest  thing  in  her 
was  her  whiteness:  her  beautifully  chiselled  face  was 
like  alabaster,  without  a  freckle  or  trace  of  colour  in 
spite  of  the  burning  hot  sun  and  wind  she  was  con- 


OUR  NEIGHBOURS 


145 


stantly  exposed  to.  She  was  also  extremely  lean,  and 
strangely  serious  for  a  little  girl:  she  never  laughed 
and  rarely  smiled.  Her  name  was  Angela,  and  she  was 
called  Anjelita,  the  afifectionate  diminutive,  but  I  doubt 
that  much  affection  was  ever  bestowed  on  her. 

To  my  small-boy's  eyes  she  was  a  beautiful  being 
with  a  cloud  on  her,  and  I  wished  it  had  been  in  my 
power  to  say  something  td  make  her  laugh  and  forget, 
though  but  for  a  minute,  the  many  cares  and  anxieties 
which  made  her  so  unnaturally  grave  for  a  little  girl. 
Nothing  proper  to  say  ever  came  to  me,  and  if  it  had 
come  it  would  no  doubt  have  remained  unspoken. 
Boys  are  always  inarticulate  where  their  deepest  feelings 
are  concerned;  however  much  they  may  desire  it  they 
cannot  express  kind  and  sympathetic  feelings.  In  a 
halting  way  they  may  sometimes  say  a  word  of  that 
nature  to  another  boy,  or  pal,  but  before  a  girl,  how- 
ever much  she  may  move  their  compassion,  they 
remain  dumb.  I  remember,  when  my  age  was  about 
nine,  the  case  of  a  quarrel  about  some  trivial  matter  I 
once  had  with  my  closest  friend,  a  boy  of  my  own  age 
who,  with  his  people,  used  to  come  yearly  on  a  month's 
visit  to  us  from  Buenos  Ayres.  For  three  whole  days 
we  spoke  not  a  word  and  took  no  notice  of  each  other, 
whereas  before  we  had  been  inseparable.  Then  he  all 
at  once  came  up  to  me  and  holding  out  his  hand  said, 
'Tet's  be  friends.''  I  seized  the  proffered  hand,  and 
was  more  grateful  to  him  than  I  have  ever  felt  towards 
any  one  since,  just  because  by  approaching  me  first  I 
was  spared  the  agony  of  having  to  say  those  three 
words  to  him.  Now  that  boy — that  is  to  say,  the 
material  part  of  him — is  but  a  handful  of  grey  ashes, 


146  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

long,  long  ago  at  rest;  but  I  can  believe  that  if  the 
other  still  living  part  should  by  chance  be  in  this  room 
now,  peeping  over  my  shoulder  to  see  what  I  am  writ- 
ing, he  would  burst  into  as  hearty  a  laugh  as  a  ghost  is 
capable  of  at  this  ancient  memory,  and  say  to  himself 
that  it  took  him  all  his  courage  to  speak  those  three 
simple  words. 

And  so  it  came  about  that  I  said  no  gentle  word  to 
white-faced  Anjelita,  and  in  due  time  she  vanished  out 
of  my  life  with  all  that  queer  tribe  of  hers,  the  bloody 
uncle  included,  to  leave  an  enduring  image  in  my  mind 
which  has  never  quite  lost  a  certain  disturbing  effect 


CHAPTER  X 
Our  Nearest  English  Neighbour 

Casa  Antigua,  our  nearest  English  neighbour's  house — 
Old  Lombardy  poplars — Cardoon  thistle  or  wild  arti- 
choke— Mr.  Royd,  an  English  sheep-farmer — Making 
sheep's-milk  cheeses  under  difficulties — Mr.  Royd's 
native  wife — The  negro  servants — The  two  daughters: 
a  striking  contrast — The  white  blue-eyed  child  and  her 
dusky  playmate — A  happy  family — Our  visits  to  Casa 
Antigua — Gorgeous  dinners — Estanislao  and  his  love 
of  wild  hfe — The  Royds'  return  visits — ^A  home-made 
carriage — The  gaucho's  primitive  conveyance — The 
happy  home  broken  up. 

One  of  the  most  important  estancias  in  our  neighbour- 
hood, at  all  events  to  us,  was  called  Casa  Antigua,  and 
that  it  was  an  ancient  dwelling-place  in  that  district 
appeared  likely  enough,  since  the  trees  were  the  largest 
and  had  an  appearance  of  extreme  age.  It  must,  how- 
ever, be  remembered  that  in  speaking  of  ancient  things 
on  the  pampas  we  mean  things  a  century  or  two  old, 
not  many  hundreds  or  thousands  of  years  as  in  Europe. 
Three  centuries  in  that  part  of  South  America  takes  us 
back  to  prehistoric  times.  These  Lombardy  poplars, 
planted  in  long  row^s,  were  the  largest  I  had  seen :  they 
were  very  tall;  many  of  them  appeared  to  be  dying  of 
old  age,  and  all  had  enormous  rough-barked  buttressed 

147 


148  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

trunks.  The  other  shade-trees  were  also  old  and 
gnarled,  some  of  them  dying.  The  house  itself  did 
not  look  ancient,  and  was  built  of  unburnt  bricks 
and  thatched,  and  had  a  broad  corridor  supported  by 
wooden  posts  or  pillars. 

The  Casa  Antigua  was  situated  about  six  miles  from 
our  house,  but  looked  no  more  than  three  on  account 
of  the  great  height  of  the  trees,  which  made  it  appear 
large  and  conspicuous  on  that  wide  level  plain.  The 
land  for  miles  round  it  was  covered  with  a  dense  growth 
of  cardoon  thistles.  Now  the  cardoon  is  the  European 
artichoke  run  wild  and  its  character  somewhat  altered 
in  a  different  soil  and  climate.  The  large  deep-cut 
leaves  are  of  a  palish  grey-green  colour,  the  stalks 
covered  with  a  whitish-grey  down,  and  the  leaves  and 
stems  thickly  set  with  long  yellow  spines.  It  grows 
in  thick  bushes,  and  the  bushes  grow  close  together  to 
the  exclusion  of  grasses  and  most  other  plant-life,  and 
produces  purple  blossoms  big  as  a  small  boy's  head,  on 
stems  four  or  five  feet  high.  The  stalks,  which  are 
about  as  thick  as  a  man's  wrist,  were  used  when  dead 
and  dry  as  firewood;  and  this  indeed  was  the  only  fuel 
obtainable  at  that  time  in  the  country,  except  ''cow 
chips,''  from  the  grazing  lands  and  ''peat"  from  the 
sheepfold.  At  the  end  of  summer,  in  February,  the 
firewood-gatherers  would  set  to  work  gathering  the 
cardoon-stalks,  their  hands  and  arms  protected  with 
sheep-skin  gloves,  and  at  that  season  our  carters  would 
bring  in  huge  loads,  to  be  stacked  up  in  piles  high  as  a 
house  for  the  year's  use. 

The  land  where  the  cardoon  grows  so  abundantly  is 
not  good  for  sheep,  and  at  Casa  Antigua  all  the  land 


NEAREST  ENGLISH  NEIGHBOUR  149 


was  of  this  character.  The  tenant  was  an  Englishman, 
a  Mr.  George  Royd,  and  it  was  thought  by  his  neigh- 
bours that  he  had  made  a  serious  mistake  which  would 
perhaps  lead  to  disastrous  consequences,  when  invest- 
ing his  capital  in  the  expensive  fine-wool  breeds  to  put 
them  on  such  land.  All  this  I  heard  years  afterwards. 
At  that  time  I  only  knew  that  he  was  our  nearest 
English  neighbour,  and  more  to  us  on  that  account  than 
any  other.  We  certainly  had  other  English  neighbours 
— those  who  lived  half  a  day's  journey  on  horseback 
from  us  were  our  neighbours  there — English,  Welsh, 
Irish,  Scotch,  but  they  were  not  like  Mr.  Royd.  These 
others,  however  prosperous  (and  some  were  the  owners 
of  large  estates),  came  mostly  from  the  working  or 
lower  middle  class  in  their  own  country  and  were 
interested  solely  in  their  own  affairs.  Mr.  Royd  was 
of  a  different  order.  He  was  about  forty-five  when 
my  years  were  seven,  a  handsome  clean-shaved  man 
with  bright  blue  humorous  eyes  and  brown  hair. 
He  was  an  educated  man,  and  loved  to  meet  with 
others  of  like  mind  with  himself,  with  whom  he 
could  converse  in  his  own  language.  There  was  no 
English  in  his  house.  He  had  a  bright  genial  disposi- 
tion, a  love  of  fun,  and  a  hearty  ringing  laugh  it  was 
a  pleasure  to  hear.  He  was  an  enthusiast  about  his 
sheep-farming,  always  full  of  fine  projects,  always 
dreaming  of  the  things  he  intended  doing  and  of  the 
great  results  which  would  follow.  One  of  his  pet 
notions  was  that  cheeses  made  with  sheep's  milk  would 
be  worth  any  price  he  liked  to  put  on  them,  and  he 
accordingly  began  to  make  them  under  very  great  diffi- 
culties, since  the  sheep  had  to  be  broken  to  it  and  they 


150  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

yielded  but  a  small  quantity  compared  with  the  sheep 
of  certain  districts  in  France  and  other  countries  where 
they  have  been  milked  for  many  generations  and  have 
enlarged  their  udders.  Worst  of  all,  his  native  ser- 
vants considered  it  a  degradation  to  have  tO'  stoop  to 
milk  such  creatures  as  sheep.  '*Why  not  milk  the 
cats?''  they  scornfully  demanded.  However,  he  suc- 
ceeded in  making  cheeses,  and  very  nice  they  were,  far 
nicer  in  fact  than  any  native  cheeses  made  from  cows' 
milk  we  had  ever  tasted.  But  the  difficulties  were  too 
great  for  him  to  produce  them  in  sufficient  quantity  for 
the  market,  and  eventually  the  sheep-milking  came  to 
an  end. 

Unfortunately  Mr.  Royd  had  no  one  to  help  him  in 
his  schemes,  or  to  advise  and  infuse  a  little  more  prac- 
ticality into  him.  His  family  could  never  have  been 
anything  but  a  burden  and  drag  on  him  in  his  struggle, 
and  his  disaster  probably  resulted  from  his  romantic 
and  over-sanguine  temper,  which  made  him  the  husband 
of  his  wife  and  caused  him  to  dream  of  a  fortune  built 
on  cheeses  made  from  sheep's  milk. 

His  wife  was  a  native;  in  other  words,  a  lady  of 
Spanish  blood,  of  a  good  family,  city  born  and  bred. 
They  had  met  in  Buenos  Ayres  when  in  their  bloom, 
at  the  most  emotional  period  of  life,  and  in  spite  of 
opposition  from  her  people  and  of  the  tremendous 
difficulties  in  the  way  of  a  union  between  one  of  the 
Faith  and  a  heretic  in  those  religious  days,  they  were 
eventually  made  man  and  wife.  As  a  girl  she  had  been 
beautiful;  now,  aged  about  forty,  she  was  only  fat — 
a  large  fat  woman,  with  an  extremely  white  skin,  raven- 
black  hair  and  eyebrows,  and  velvet-black  eyes.  That 


NEAREST  ENGLISH  NEIGHBOUR  151 

was  Dona  Mercedes  as  I  knew  her.  She  did  no  work 
in  the  house,  and  never  went  for  a  walk  or  a  ride  on 
horseback :  she  spent  her  time  in  an  easy-chair,  always 
well  dressed,  and  in  warm  weather  always  with  a  fan  in 
her  hand.  I  can  hear  the  rattle  of  that  fan  now  as  she 
played  with  it,  producing  a  succession  of  graceful  wav- 
ing motions  and  rhythmic  sounds  as  an  accompaniment 
to  the  endless  torrent  of  small  talk  which  she  poured 
out;  for  she  was  an  exceedingly  voluble  person,  and  to 
assist  in  making  the  conversation  more  lively  there  were 
always  two  or  three  screaming  parrots  on  their  perches 
near  her.  She  also  liked  to  be  surrounded  by  all  the 
other  females  in  the  house,  her  two  daughters  and  the 
indoor  servants,  four  or  five  in  number,  all  full-blooded 
negresses,  black  but  comely,  fat,  pleasant-looking,  laugh- 
ing young  and  middle-aged  women,  all  as  a  rule 
dressed  in  white.  They  were  unmarried,  but  two  or 
three  of  them  were  the  mothers  of  certain  small  darkies 
to  be  seen  playing  about  and  rolling  in  the  dust  near 
the  servants'  quarters  at  the  far  end  of  the  long  low 
house. 

The  eldest  daughter,  Eulodia,  was  about  fifteen  as 
I  first  remember  her,  a  tall  slim  handsome  girl  with  blue- 
black  hair,  black  eyes,  coral-red  lips,  and  a  remarkably 
white  skin  without  a  trace  of  red  colour  in  it.  She  was 
no  doubt  just  like  what  her  mother  had  been  when  the 
dashing  impressionable  young  George  Royd  had  first 
met  her  and  lost  his  heart — and  soul.  The  younger 
sister,  about  eight  at  that  time,  was  a  perfect  contrast 
to  Eulodia:  she  had  taken  after  her  father,  and  in 
colour  and  appearance  generally  was  a  perfect  little 
English  girl  of  the  usual  angel  type,  with  long  shining 


152  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

golden  hair,  worn  in  curls,  eyes  of  the  purest  turquoise 
blue,  and  a  complexion  like  the  petals  of  a  wild  rose. 
Adelina  was  her  pretty  name,  and  to  us  Adelina  was 
the  most  beautiful  human  being  in  the  world,  especially 
when  seen  with  her  dusky  little  playmate  Liberata,  who 
was  of  the  same  age  and  height  and  was  the  child  of 
one  of  the  black  servants.  These  two  had  grown  fond 
of  each  other  from  the  cradle,  and  so  Liberata  had 
been  promoted  to  be  Adelina's  constant  companion  in 
the  house  and  to  wear  pretty  dresses.  Being  a  midatita 
she  was  dark  or  dusky  skinned,  with  a  reddish  tinge  in 
the  duskiness,  purple-red  lips,  and  liquid  black  eyes 
with  orange-brown  reflections  in  them — the  eyes  called 
tortoiseshell  in  America.  Her  crisp  cast-iron  coloured 
hair  was  worn  like  a  fleece  round  her  small  head,  and 
her  features  were  so  refined  one  could  only  suppose 
that  her  father  had  been  a  singularly  handsome  as  well 
as  a  white  man.  Adelina  and  Liberata  were  insepar- 
able, except  at  meal-times,  when  the  dusky  little  girl  had 
to  go  back  among  her  own  tribe  on  the  mother's  side; 
and  they  formed  an  exquisite  picture  as  one  often  saw 
them,  standing  by  the  Senora's  chair  with  their  arms 
round  each  other's  necks — the  pretty  dark-skinned  child 
and  the  beautiful  white  child  with  shining  hair  and  blue 
forget-me-not  eyes. 

Adelina  was  her  father's  favourite,  but  he  was  fond 
of  all  his  people,  the  black  servants  included,  and  they 
of  him,  and  the  life  at  Casa  Antigua  appeared  to  be  an 
exceedingly  happy  and  harmonious  one. 

Looking  back  at  this  distance  of  time  it  strikes  me 
when  I  come  to  think  of  it,  that  it  was  a  most  extra- 
ordinary menage,  a  collection  of  the  most  incongruous 


NEAREST  ENGLISH  NEIGHBOUR  153 


beings  it  would  be  possible  to  bring  together — a  sort 
of  Happy  Family  in  the  zoological  sense.  It  did  not 
seem  so  at  the  time,  when  in  any  house  on  the  wide 
pampas  one  would  meet  with  people  whose  lives  and 
characters  would  be  regarded  in  civilized  countries  as 
exceedingly  odd  and  almost  incredible. 

It  was  a  red-letter  day  to  us  children  when,  about 
once  a  month,  we  were  packed  into  a  trap  and  driven 
with  our  parents  to  spend  a  day  at  Casa  Antigua.  The 
dinner  at  noon  was  the  most  gorgeous  affair  of  the  kind 
we  knew.  One  of  Mr.  Royd's  enthusiasms  was  cook- 
ery— the  making  of  rare  and  delicate  dishes — and  the 
servants  had  been  taught  so  well  that  we  used  to 
be  amazed  at  the  richness  and  profusion  of  the  repast. 
These  dinners  were  to  us  like  the  ''collations''  and 
feasts  so  minutely  and  lovingly  described  in  the 
Arabian  Nights,  especially  that  dinner  of  many  courses 
given  by  the  Barmecide  to  his  hungry  guest  which 
followed  the  first  tantalizing  imaginary  one.  The  won- 
der was  that  any  man  in  the  position  of  a  sheep- 
farmer  in  a  semi-barbarous  land,  far  from  any  town, 
could  provide  such  dinners  for  his  visitors. 

After  dinner  my  best  time  would  come,  when  I 
would  steal  off  to  look  for  Estanislao,  the  young  native 
horseman,  who  was  only  too  enthusiastic  about  wild 
life  and  spent  more  time  hunting  rheas  than  in  attend- 
ing to  his  duties.  "When  I  see  an  ostrich,''  he  would 
say,  "I  leave  the  flock  and  drop  my  work  no  matter 
what  it  is.  I  would  rather  lose  my  place  on  the 
estancia  than  not  chase  it."  But  he  never  lost  his 
place,  since  it  appeared  that  no  one  could  do  anything 
wrong  on  the  estancia  and  not  be  forgiven  by  its  master. 


154  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

Then  Estanislao,  a  big  fellow  in  gaucho  dress,  wearing 
a  red  handkerchief  tied  round  his  head  in  place  of  hat, 
and  a  mass  or  cloud  of  blackish  crinkled  hair  on  his 
neck  and  shoulders,  would  take  me  round  the  planta- 
tion to  show  me  any  nests  he  had  found  and  any  rare 
birds  that  happened  to  be  about. 

Towards  evening  we  would  be  bundled  back  into 
the  trap  and  driven  home.  Then,  when  the  day  came 
round  for  the  return  visit,  Mr.  Royd  would  bundle  his 
family  into  their  ''carriage,"  which  he,  without  being 
a  carriage-builder  or  even  a  carpenter,  had  made  with 
his  own  hands.  It  had  four  solid  wooden  wheels  about 
a  yard  in  diameter,  and  upright  wooden  sides  about 
four  or  five  feet  high.  It  was  springless  and  without 
seats,  and  had  a  long  pole  to  which  two  horses  were 
fastened,  and  Estanislao,  mounted  on  one,  would  thrash 
them  into  a  gallop  and  carry  the  thing  bounding  over 
the  roadless  plain.  The  fat  lady  and  other  passengers 
were  saved  from  being  bumped  to  death  by  several 
mattresses,  pillows,  and  cushions  heaped  inside.  It  was 
the  strangest,  most  primitive  conveyance  I  ever  saw, 
except  the  one  commonly  used  by  a  gaucho  to  take  his 
wife  on  a  visit  to  a  neighbour's  house  when  she  was 
in  a  delicate  condition  or  too  timid  to  ride  on  a  horse 
or  not  well  enough  off  to  own  a  side-saddle.  This  was 
a  well-stretched,  dried  horse-hide,  with  a  lasso  attached 
at  one  end  to  the  head  or  fore-part  of  the  hide  and  the 
other  end  to  the  gaucho's  horse,  as  a  rule  to  the  sur- 
cingle. A  stool  or  cushion  was  placed  in  the  centre 
of  the  big  hide  for  the  lady  to  sit  on,  and  when  she 
had  established  herself  on  it  the  man  would  whip  up 
his  horse  and  away  he  would  gallop,  draj^ging  the 


NEAREST  ENGLISH  NEIGHBOUR  155 


strange  conveyance  after  him — a  sight  which  filled  the 
foreigner  with  amazement. 

Our  intimate  happy  relations  with  the  Royd  family 
continued  till  about  my  twelfth  year,  then  came  rather 
suddenly  to  an  end.  Mr.  Royd,  who  had  always 
seemed  one  of  the  brightest,  happiest  men  we  knew, 
all  at  once  fell  into  a  state  of  profound  melancholy. 
No  one  could  guess  the  cause,  as  he  was  quite  well 
and  appeared  to  be  prosperous.  He  was  at  length 
persuaded  by  his  friends  to  go  to  Buenos  Ayres  to 
consult  a  doctor,  and  went  alone  and  stayed  in  the 
house  of  an  Anglo-Argentine  family  who  were  also 
friends  of  ours.  By-and-by  the  dreadful  news  came 
that  he  had  committed  suicide  by  cutting  his  throat 
with  a  razor.  His  wife  and  daughters  then  left  the 
Casa  Antigua,  and  not  long  afterwards  Dona  Mercedes 
wrote  to  my  mother  that  they  were  left  penniless;  that 
their  flocks  and  other  possessions  at  the  estancia  were 
to  be  sold  for  the  benefit  of  their  creditors,  and  that 
she  and  her  daughters  were  living  on  the  charity  of 
some  of  her  relations  who  were  not  well  ofif.  Her  only 
hope  was  that  her  two  daughters,  being  good-looking 
girls,  would  find  husbands  and  be  in  a  position  to  keep 
her  from  want.  Her  one  word  about  her  dead  hus- 
band, the  lovable,  easy-going  George  Royd,  the  bright 
handsome  English  boy  who  had  wooed  and  won  her  so 
many  years  before,  was  that  she  looked  upon  her  meet- 
ing with  him  in  girlhood  as  the  great  calamity  of  her 
life,  that  in  killing  himself  and  leaving  his  wife  and 
daughters  to  poverty  and  sufifering,  he  had  committed 
an  unpardonable  crime. 

So  ends  the  story  of  our  nearest  English  neighbour. 


CHAPTER  XI 
A  Breeder  of  Piebalds 

La  Tapera,  a  native  estancia — Don  Gregorio  Gandara — ^ 
His  grotesque  appearance  and  strange  laugh — Gandara's 
wife  and  her  habits  and  pets — My  dislike  of  hairless 
dogs — Gandara's  daughters — A  pet  ostrich — In  the 
peach  orchard — Gandara's  herds  of  piebald  brood  mares 
— His  masterful  temper — His  own  saddle-horses — 
Creating  a  sensation  at  gaucho  gatherings — The  younger 
daughter's  lovers — Her  marriage  at  our  house — ^The 
priest  and  the  wedding  breakfast^ — Demetria  forsaken 
by  her  husband. 

When,  standing  by  the  front  gate  of  our  home,  we 
looked  out  to  the  north  over  the  level  plain  and  let 
our  eyes  rove  west  from  the  tall  Lombardy  poplars  of 
Casa  Antigua,  they  presently  rested  on  another  pile  or 
island  of  trees,  blue  in  the  distance,  marking  the  site 
of  another  estancia  house.  This  was  the  estancia 
called  La  Tapera,  with  whose  owner  we  also  had 
friendly  relations  during  all  the  years  we  lived  in  that 
district.  The  owner  was  Don  Gregorio  Gandara,  a 
native,  and  like  our  nearest  English  neighbour,  Mr. 
Royd,  an  enthusiast,  and  was  also  like  him  in  being 
the  husband  of  a  fat  indolent  wife  who  kept  parrots 
and  other  pet  animals,  and  the  father  of  two  daughters. 
In  this  case,  too,  there  were  no  sons.    There,  however. 

X56 


A  BREEDER  OF  PIEBALDS  157 

all  resemblance  ceased,  since  two  men  more  unlike  in 
their  appearance,  character,  and  fortune  it  would  not 
be  easy  to  find.  Don  Gregorio  was  an  extraordinary 
person  to  look  at;  he  had  a  round  or  barrel-shaped 
body,  short  bow  legs,  and  a  big  round  head,  which 
resembled  a  ball  fashioned  out  of  a  block  of  dark- 
coloured  wood  with  a  coarse  human  face  and  huge 
ears  rudely  carved  on  it.  He  had  a  curly  head,  the 
crisp  dark  hair  growing  as  knobs,  which  gave  his 
round  skull  the  appearance  of  being  embossed  like 
the  head  of  a  curly  retriever.  The  large  brown  eyes 
were  extremely  prominent,  with  a  tremendous  staring 
power  in  them,  and  the  whole  expression  was  one  of 
toad-like  gravity.  But  he  could  laugh  on  occasion, 
and  his  laugh  to  us  children  was  the  most  grotesque 
and  consequently  the  most  delightful  thing  about  him. 
Whenever  we  saw  him  ride  up  and  dismount,  and 
after  fastening  his  magnificently  caparisoned  horse  to 
the  outer  gate  come  in  to  make  a  call  on  our  parents, 
we  children  would  abandon  our  sports  or  whatever  we 
were  doing  and  joyfully  run  to  the  house;  then  dis- 
tributing ourselves  about  the  room  on  chairs  and  stools, 
sit,  silent  and  meek,  listening  and  watching  for  Don 
Gregorio's  laugh.  He  talked  in  a  startlingly  em- 
phatic way,  almost  making  one  jump  when  he  assented 
to  what  was  being  said  with  his  loud  sudden  si-si-si'Si-si, 
and  when  he  spoke  bringing  out  his  sentences  two  or 
three  words  at  a  time,  sounding  like  angry  barks.  And 
by  and  by  something  would  be  said  to  touch  his 
risible  faculties,  which  would  send  him  off  in  a  sort 
of  fit;  and  throwing  himself  back  in  his  chair,  clos- 
ing his  eyes  and  opening  wide  his  big  mouth  he  would 


158  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

draw  his  breath  in  with  a  prolonged  waiHng  or 
sibilant  sound  until  his  lungs  were  too  full  to  hold 
any  rnore,  and  it  would  then  be  discharged  with  a 
rush,  accompanied  by  a  sort  of  wild  animal  scream, 
something  like  the  scream  of  a  fox.  Then  instantly, 
almost  before  the  scream  was  over,  his  countenance 
would  recover  its  preternatural  gravity  and  intense 
staring  attention. 

Our  keen  delight  in  this  performance  made  it  actually 
painful  since  the  feeling  could  not  be  expressed — since 
we  knew  that  our  father  knew  that  we  were  only  too 
liable  to  explode  in  the  presence  of  an  honoured  guest, 
and  nothing  vexed  him  more.  While  in  the  room  we 
dared  not  change  glances  or  even  smile;  but  after 
seeing  and  hearing  the  wonderful  laugh  a  few  times 
we  would  steal  off  and  going  to  some  quiet  spot  sit  in 
a  circle  and  start  imitating  it,  finding  it  a  very  delight- 
ful pastime. 

After  I  had  learnt  to  ride  I  used  sometimes  to  go 
with  my  mother  and  sisters  for  an  afternoon's  visit  to 
La  Tapera.  The  wife  was  the  biggest  and  fattest 
woman  in  our  neighbourhood  and  stood  a  head  and 
shoulders  taller  than  her  barrel-shaped  husband.  She 
Vv'as  not,  like  Dona  Mercedes,  a  lady  by  birth,  nor  an 
educated  person,  but  resembled  her  in  her  habits  and 
tastes.  She  sat  always  in  a  large  cane  easy-chair, 
outdoors  or  in,  invariably  with  four  hairless  dogs  in 
her  company,  one  on  her  broad  lap,  another  on  a 
lambskin  rug  at  her  feet,  and  one  on  rugs  at  each  side. 
The  three  on  the  floor  were  ever  patiently  waiting  for 
their  respective  turns  to  occupy  the  broad  warm  lap 
when  the  time  came  to  remove  the  last-favoured  one 


A  BREEDER  OF  PIEBALDS  159 


from  that  position.  I  had  an  invincible  dislike  to  these 
dogs  with  their  shiny  blue-black  naked  skins,  like  the 
bald  head  of  an  old  negro,  and  their  long  white  scat- 
tered whiskers.  These  white  stifif  hairs  on  their  faces 
and  their  dim  blinking  eyes  gave  them  a  certain  re- 
semblance to  very  old  ugly  men  with  black  blood  in 
them,  and  made  them  all  the  more  repulsive. 

The  two  daughters,  both  grown  to  womanhood, 
were  named  Marcelina  and  Demetria;  the  first  big, 
brown,  jolly,  and  fat  like  her  mother,  the  other  with 
better  features,  a  pale  olive  skin,  dark  melancholy  eyes, 
and  a  gentle  pensive  voice  and  air  which  made  her 
seem  like  one  of  a  different  family  and  race.  The 
daughters  would  serve  mate  to  us,  a  beverage  which 
as  a  small  boy  I  did  not  like,  but  there  was  no  choco- 
late or  tea  in  that  house  for  visitors,  and  in  fruit-time 
I  was  always  glad  to  get  away  to  the  orchard.  As  at 
our  own  home  the  old  peach  trees  grew  in  the  middle 
part  of  the  plantation,  the  other  parts  being  planted 
with  rows  of  Lombardy  poplars  and  other  large  shade 
trees.  A  tame  ostrich,  or  rhea,  was  kept  at  the  house, 
and  as  long  as  we  remained  indoors  or  seated  in  the 
verandah  he  would  hang  about  close  by,  but  would 
follow  us  as  soon  as  we  started  off  to  the  orchard. 
He  was  like  a  pet  dog  and  could  not  endure  to  be 
left  alone  or  in  the  uncongenial  company  of  other  do- 
mestic creatures — dogs,  cats,  fowls,  turkeys,  and  geese. 
He  regarded  men  and  women  as  the  only  suitable  asso- 
ciates for  an  ostrich,  but  was  not  allowed  in  the  rooms 
on  account  of  his  inconvenient  habit  of  swallowing 
metal  objects  such  as  scissors,  spoons,  thimbles,  bod- 
kins, copper  coins,  and  anything  of  the  kind  he  could 


i6o  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

snatch  up  when  no  one  was  looking.  In  the  orchard 
when  he  saw  us  eating  peaches  he  would  do  the  same, 
and  if  he  couldn't  reach  high  enough  to  pluck  them 
for  himself  he  would  beg  of  us.  It  was  great  fun 
to  give  him  half  a  dozen  or  more  at  a  time,  then,  when 
they  had  been  quickly  gobbled  up,  watch  their  progress 
as  the  long  row  of  big  round  lumps  slowly  travelled 
down  his  neck  and  disappeared  one  by  one  as  the 
peaches  passed  into  his  crop. 

Gandara's  great  business  was  horse-breeding,  and  as 
a  rule  he  kept  about  a  thousand  brood  mares,  so  that 
the  herds  usually  numbered  about  three  thousand  head. 
Strange  to  say,  they  were  nearly  all  piebalds.  The 
gaucho,  from  the  poorest  worker  on  horseback  to  the 
largest  ovv^ner  of  lands  and  cattle,  has,  or  had  in  those 
days,  a  fancy  for  having  all  his  riding-horses  of  one 
colour.  Every  man  as  a  rule  had  his  tropilla — his  own 
half  a  dozen  or  a  dozen  or  more  saddle-horses,  and  he 
would  have  them  all  as  nearly  alike  as  possible,  so  that 
one  man  had  chestnuts,  another  browns,  bays,  silver-  or 
iron-greys,  duns,  fawns,  cream-noses,  or  blacks,  or 
whites,  or  piebalds.  On  some  estancias  the  cattle,  too, 
were  all  of  one  colour,  and  I  remember  one  estate  where 
the  cattle,  numbering  about  six  thousand,  were  all  black. 
Our  neighbour's  fancy  was  for  piebald  horses,  and  so 
strong  was  it  that  he  wished  not  to  have  any  one-col- 
oured animals  in  his  herd,  despite  the  fact  that  he  bred 
horses  for  sale  and  that  piebalds  were  not  so  popular 
as  horses  of  a  more  normal  colouring.  He  would  have 
done  better  if,  sticking  to  one  colour,  he  had  bred 
iron-greys,  cream-noses,  chestnuts,  or  fawns  or  duns — 
all  favourite  colours;  or  better  still  if  he  had  not 


A  BREEDER  OF  PIEBALDS  i6i 


confined  himself  to  any  one  colour.  The  stallions  were 
all  piebalds,  but  many  of  the  brood  mares  were  white, 
as  he  had  discovered  that  he  could  get  as  good  if 
not  better  results  from  keeping  white  as  well  as  pie- 
bald mares.  Nobody  quarrelled  with  Gandara  on  ac- 
count of  his  taste  in  horses;  on  the  contrary,  he  and 
his  vast  parti-coloured  herds  were  greatly  admired,  but 
his  ambition  to  have  a  monopoly  in  piebalds  was  some- 
times a  cause  of  offence.  He  sold  two-year-old  geldings 
only,  but  never  a  mare  unless  for  slaughter,  for  in 
those  days  the  half-wild  horses  of  the  pampas  were 
annually  slaughtered  in  vast  numbers  just  for  the  hides 
and  grease.  If  he  found  a  white  or  piebald  mare  in  a 
neighbour's  herd  he  would  not  rest  until  he  got  posses- 
sion of  it,  and  by  giving  double  its  value  in  money  or 
horses  he  seldom  found  any  difficulty  in  getting  what 
he  wanted.  But  occasionally  some  poor  gaucho  with 
only  a  few  animals  would  refuse  to  part  with  a  piebald 
mare,  either  out  of  pride,  or  ''cussedness''  as  an  Ameri- 
can would  say,  or  because  he  was  attached  to  it,  and 
this  would  stir  Gandara's  soul  to  its  deepest  depth 
and  bring  up  all  the  blackness  in  him  to  the  surface. 
'What  do  you  want,  then?''  he  would  shout,  sitting 
on  his  horse  and  making  violent  gestures  with  his 
right  hand  and  arm,  barking  out  his  words.  "Have 
I  not  offered  you  enough?  Listen!  What  is  a  white 
mare  to  you — to  you,  a  poor  man — more  than  a  mare 
of  any  other  colour?  If  your  riding-horses  must 
be  of  one  colour,  tell  me  the  colour  you  want.  Black 
or  brown  or  bay  or  chestnut,  or  what?  Look!  you 
shall  have  two  young  unbroken  geldings  of  two  years 
in  exchange  for  the  mare.    Could  you  make  a  better 


i62  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

exchange?  Were  you  ever  treated  more  generously? 
If  you  refuse  it  will  be  out  of  spite,  and  I  shall  know 
how  to  treat  you.  When  you  lose  your  animals  and 
are  broken,  when  your  children  are  sick  with  fever, 
when  your  wife  is  starving,  you  shall  not  come  to 
me  for  a  horse  to  ride  on,  nor  for  money,  nor  meat, 
nor  medicine,  since  you  will  have  me  for  an  enemy 
instead  of  a  friend." 

That,  they  say,  was  how  he  raged  and  bullied  when 
he  met  with  a  repulse  from  a  poor  neighbour.  So  fond 
was  Don  Gregorio  of  his  piebalds  that  he  spent  the 
greater  part  of  every  day  on  horseback  with  his  differ- 
ent herds  of  mares,  each  led  by  its  own  proud  piebald 
stallion.  He  was  perpetually  waiting  and  watching 
with  anxious  interest  for  the  appearance  of  a  new  foal. 
If  it  turned  out  not  a  piebald  he  cared  nothing  more 
about  it,  no  matter  how  beautiful  in  colour  it  might  be 
or  what  good  points  it  had :  it  was  to  go  as  soon  as  he 
could  get  rid  of  it;  but  if  a  piebald,  he  would  rejoice, 
and  if  there  was  anything  remarkable  in  its  colouring 
he  would  keep  a  sharp  eye  on  it,  to  find  out  later 
perhaps  that  he  liked  it  too  well  to  part  with  it.  Event- 
ually, when  broken,  it  would  go  into  his  private  tropilla, 
and  in  this  way  he  would  always  possess  three  or  four 
times  as  many  saddle-horses  as  he  needed.  If  you 
met  Gandara  every  day  for  a  week  or  two  you  would 
see  him  each  time  on  a  different  horse,  and  every  one 
of  them  would  be  more  or  less  a  surprise  to  you  on 
account  of  its  colouring. 

There  was  something  fantastic  in  this  passion.  It 
reminds  one  of  the  famous  eighteenth-century  miller 
of  Newhaven,  described  by  Mark  Antony  Lower  in  his 


A  BREEDER  OF  PIEBALDS  163 


book  about  the  strange  customs  and  quaint  characters 
in  the  Sussex  of  the  old  days.  The  miller  used  to  pay 
weekly  visits  on  horseback  to  his  customers  in  the 
neighbouring  towns  and  villages,  his  horse,  originally 
a  white  one,  having  first  been  painted  some  brilliant 
colour — blue,  green,  yellow,  orange,  purple,  or  scarlet. 
The  whole  village  would  turn  out  to  look  at  the 
miller's  wonderful  horse  and  speculate  as  to  the  colour 
he  would  exhibit  on  his  next  appearance.  Gandara's 
horses  were  strangely  coloured  by  nature  aided  by  arti- 
ficial selection,  and  I  remember  that  as  a  boy  I  thought 
them  very  beautiful.  Sometimes  it  was  a  black-  or 
brown-  or  bay-and-white,  or  a  chestnut-  or  silver-grey- 
or  strawberry-red-and-white,  but  the  main  point  was 
the  pleasing  arrangement  and  shading  of  the  dark 
colour.  Some  of  his  best  selected  specimens  were 
iron-  or  blue-grey-and-white ;  others,  finer  still,  fawn- 
and-white  and  dun-and-white,  and  the  best  of  all,  per- 
haps, white  and  a  metallic  tawny  yellow,  the  colour 
the  natives  call  bronze  or  brassy,  which  I  never  see 
in  England.  Horses  of  this  colour  have  the  ears  edged 
and  tipped  with  black,  the  muzzle,  fetlocks,  mane,  and 
tail  also  black.  I  do  not  know  if  he  ever  succeeded 
in  breeding  a  tortoiseshell. 

Gandara's  pride  in  the  horses  he  rode  himself — the 
rare  blooms  selected  from  his  equine  garden — showed 
itself  in  the  way  in  which  he  decorated  them  with 
silver  headstalls  and  bit  and  the  whole  gear  sparkling 
with  silver,  while  he  was  careless  of  his  own  dress, 
going  about  in  an  old  rusty  hat,  unpolished  boots,  and 
a  frayed  old  Indian  poncho  or  cloak  over  his  gaucho 
garments.    Probably  the  most  glorious  moment  of  his 


i64  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

life  was  when  he  rode  to  a  race-meeting  or  cattle- 
marking  or  other  gathering  of  the  gaucho  population 
of  the  district,  when  all  eyes  would  be  turned  to  him 
on  his  arrival.  Dismounting,  he  would  hobble  his 
horse,  tie  the  glittering  reins  to  the  back  of  the  saddle, 
and  leave  him  proudly  champing  his  big  native  bit  and 
tossing  his  decorated  head,  while  the  people  gathered 
round  to  admire  the  strangely-coloured  animal  as  if  it 
had  been  a  Pegasus  just  alighted  from  the  skies  to 
stand  for  a  while  exhibiting  itself  among  the  horses 
of  the  earth. 

My  latest  recollections  of  La  Tapera  are  concerned 
more  with  Demetria  than  the  piebalds.  She  was  not 
an  elegant  figure,  as  was  natural  in  a, daughter  of  the 
grotesque  Don  Gregorio,  but  her  countenance,  as  I 
have  said,  was  attractive  on  account  of  its  colour  and 
gentle  wistful  expression,  and  being  the  daughter  of 
a  man  rich  in  horses  she  did  not  want  for  lovers.  In 
those  far-off  days  the  idle,  gay,  well-dressed  young 
gambler  was  always  a  girl's  first  and  often  most  suc- 
cessful wooer,  but  at  La  Tapera  the  young  lovers  had 
to  reckon  with  one  who,  incredible  as  it  seemed  in  a 
gaucho,  hated  gambling  and  kept  a  hostile  and  rather 
terrifying  eye  on  their  approaches.  Eventually  De- 
metria became  engaged  to  a  young  stranger  from 
a  distance  who  had  succeeded  in  persuading  the  father 
that  he  was  an  eligible  person  and  able  to  provide  for 
a  wife. 

Now  it  happened  that  the  nearest  priest  in  our  part 
of  the  country  lived  a  long  distance  away,  and  to  get 
to  him  and  his  little  thatched  chapel  one  had  to  cross 
a  swamp  two  miles  wide  in  which  one's  horse  would 


A  BREEDER  OF  PIEBALDS  165 


sink  belly-deep  in  miry  holes  at  least  a  dozen  times 
before  one  could  get  through.  In  these  circumstances 
the  Gandara  family  could  not  go  to  the  priest,  but 
managed  to  persuade  him  to  come  to  them,  and  as 
La  Tapera  was  not  considered  a  good  enough  place 
in  which  to  hold  so  important  a  ceremony,  my  parents 
invited  them  to  have  the  marriage  in  our  house.  The 
priest  arrived  on  horseback  about  noon  on  a  sultry 
day,  hot  and  tired  and  well  splashed  with  dried  mud, 
and  in  a  rather  bad  temper.  It  must  also  have  gone 
against  him  to  unite  these  young  people  in  the  house 
of  heretics  who  were  doomed  to  a  dreadful  future 
after  their  rebellious  lives  had  ended.  However,  he 
got  through  with  the  business,  and  presently  recovered 
his  good  temper  and  grew  quite  genial  and  talkative 
when  he  was  led  into  the  dining-room  and  found  a 
grand  wedding-breakfast  with  wine  in  plenty  on  the 
table.  During  the  breakfast  I  looked  often  and  long 
at  the  faces  of  the  newly-married  pair,  and  pitied  our 
nice  gentle  Demetria,  and  wished  she  had  not  given 
herself  to  that  man.  He  was  not  a  bad-looking  young 
man  and  was  well-dressed  in  the  gaucho  costume,  but 
he  was  strangely  silent  and  ill  at  ease  the  whole  time 
and  did  not  win  our  regard.  I  never  saw  him  again. 
It  soon  came  out  that  he  was  a  gambler  and  had 
nothing  but  his  skill  with  a  pack  of  cards  to  live  by, 
and  Don  Gregorio  in  a  rage  told  him  to  go  back  to 
his  native  place.  And  go  he  did  very  soon,  leaving 
poor  Demetria  on  her  parents'  hands. 

Shortly  after  this  unhappy  experience  Don  Gregorio 
bought  a  house  in  Buenos  Ayres  for  his  wife  and 
daughters,  so  that  they  could  go  and  spend  a  month 


i66  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

or  two  when  they  wanted  a  change,  and  I  saw  them 
on  one  or  two  occasions  when  in  town.  He  himself 
would  have  been  out  of  his  element  in  such  a  place, 
shut  up  in  a  close  room  or  painfully  waddling  over 
the  rough  boulder-stones  of  the  narrow  streets  on  his 
bow  legs.  Life  for  him  was  to  be  on  the  back  of  a 
piebald  horse  on  the  wide  green  plain,  looking  after 
his  beloved  animals. 


CHAPTER  XII 


The  Head  of  a  Decayed  House 

The  Estancia  Canada  Seca — Low  lands  and  floods — Don 
Anastacio,  a  gaucho  exquisite — A  greatly  respected 
man — Poor  relations — Don  Anastacio  a  pig-fancier — 
Narrow  escape  from  a  pig — Charm  of  the  low  green 
lands — The  flower  called  mdcachina — ^A  sweet-tasting 
bulb — Beauty  of  the  green  flower-sprinkled  turf — 
A  haunt  of  the  golden  plover — The  Bolas — My  plover- 
hunting  experience — Rebuked  by  a  gaucho — A  green 
spot,  our  playground  in  summer  and  lake  in  winter — 
The  venomous  toad-like  Caratophrys — Vocal  perform- 
ance of  the  toad-like  creature — We  make  war  on 
them — The  great  lake  battle  and  its  results. 

In  this  chapter  I  wish  to  introduce  the  reader  to  the 
last  but  one  of  the  half  a  dozen  of  our  nearest  neigh- 
bours, selected  as  typical  of  the  smaller  estancieros — 
a  class  of  landowners  and  cattle-breeders  then  in  their 
decay  and  probably  now  fast  vanishing.  This  was 
Don  Anastacio  Buenavida,  who  was  an  original  person 
too  in  his  little  way.  He  was  one  of  our  very  nearest 
neighbours,  his  estancia  house  being  no  more  than  two 
short  miles  from  us  on  the  south  side.  Like  most 
of  these  old  establishments,  it  was  a  long  low  building 
with  a  thatched  roof,  enclosures  for  cattle  and  sheep 
close  by,  and  an  old  grove  or  plantation  of  shade-trees 
bordered  with  rows  of  tall  Lombardy  poplars.  The 

167 


i68  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

whole  place  had  a  decayed  and  neglected  appearance, 
the  grounds  being  weedy  and  littered  with  bleached 
bones  and  other  rubbish :  fences  and  ditches  had  also 
been  destroyed  and  obliterated,  so  that  the  cattle  were 
free  to  rub  their  hides  on  the  tree  trunks  and  gnaw 
at  the  bark.  The  estancia  was  called  Canada  Seca, 
from  a  sluggish  muddy  stream  near  the  house  which 
almost  invariably  dried  up  in  summer;  in  winter  after 
heavy  rains  it  overflowed  its  low  banks,  and  in  very 
wet  seasons  lake-like  ponds  of  water  were  formed  all 
over  the  low-lying  plain  between  Cafiada  Seca  and  our 
house.  A  rainy  season  was  welcome  to  us  children: 
the  sight  of  wide  sheets  of  clear  shallow  water  with 
a  vivid  green  turf  beneath  excited  us  joyfully,  and 
also  afforded  us  some  adventurous  days,  one  of  which 
will  be  related  by  and  by. 

Don  Anastacio  Buenavida  was  a  middle-aged  man, 
a  bachelor,  deeply  respected  by  his  neighbours,  and 
even  looked  on  as  a  person  of  considerable  importance. 
So  much  did  I  hear  in  his  praise  that  as  a  child  I  had 
a  kind  of  reverential  feeling  for  him,  which  lasted  for 
years  and  did  not,  I  think,  wholly  evaporate  until 
I  was  in  my  teens  and  began  to  form  my  own  judg- 
ments. He  was  quite  a  little  man,  not  more  than  an 
inch  or  two  over  five  feet  high,  slim,  with  a  narrow 
waist  and  small  ladylike  hands  and  feet.  His  small 
oval  face  was  the  colour  of  old  parchment;  he  had 
large  dark  pathetic  eyes,  a  beautifully  shaped  black 
moustache,  and  long  black  hair,  worn  in  symmetrical 
ringlets  to  his  shoulders.  In  his  dress  too  he  was 
something  of  an  exquisite.  He  wore  the  picturesque 
gaucho  costume;  a  camiseta,  or  blouse,  of  the  finest 


HEAD  OF  A  DECAYED  HOUSE  169 


black  cloth,  profusely  decorated  with  silver  buttons, 
puf¥s  and  pleats,  and  scarlet  and  green  embroidery; 
a  chiripd,  the  shawl-like  garment  worn  in  place  of 
trousers,  of  the  finest  yellow  or  vicuna-coloured  wool, 
the  white  carsoncillos,  or  wide  drawers,  showing  below, 
of  the  finest  linen,  with  more  fringe  and  lace-work 
than  was  usual  in  that  garment.  His  boots  were  well 
polished,  and  his  poncho,  or  cloak,  of  the  finest  blue 
cloth,  lined  with  scarlet. 

It  must  have  taken  Don  Anastacio  a  couple  of  hours 
each  morning  to  get  himself  up  in  this  fashion,  ringlets 
and  all,  and  once  up  he  did  nothing  but  sit  in  the 
living-room,  sipping  bitter  mate  and  taking  part  from 
time  to  time  in  the  general  conversation,  speaking 
always  in  low  but  impressive  tones.  He  would  say 
something  about  the  weather,  the  lack  or  superabun- 
dance of  water,  according  to  the  season,  the  condition 
of  his  animals  and  the  condition  of  the  pasture — in 
fact,  just  what  everybody  else  was  saying  but  of  more 
importance  as  coming  from  him.  All  listened  to  his 
words  with  the  profoundest  attention  and  respect,  and 
no  wonder,  since  most  of  those  who  sat  in  his  living- 
room,  sucking  mate,  were  his  poor  relations  who  fed 
on  his  bounty. 

Don  Anastacio  was  the  last  of  a  long  line  of 
estancieros  once  rich  in  land  and  cattle,  but  for  genera- 
tions the  Canada  Seca  estate  had  been  dwindling  as 
land  was  sold,  and  now  there  was  little  left,  and  the 
cattle  and  horses  were  few,  and  only  a  small  flock  of 
sheep  kept  just  to  provide  the  house  with  mutton. 
His  poor  relations  living  scattered  about  the  district 
knew  that  he  was  not  only  an  improvident  but  an 


170  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

exceedingly  weak  and  soft-hearted  man,  in  spite  of 
his  grand  manner,  and  many  of  the  poorest  among 
them  had  been  allowed  to  build  their  ranchos  on  his 
land  and  to  keep  a  few  animals  for  their  sustenance: 
most  of  these  had  built  their  hovels  quite  close  to  the 
estancia  house,  behind  the  plantation,  so  that  it  was 
almost  like  a  hamlet  at  this  point.  These  poor  neigh- 
bours had  the  freedom  of  the  kitchen  or  living-room; 
it  was  usually  full  of  them,  especially  of  the  women, 
gossiping,  sipping  endless  mate,  and  listening  with 
admiring  attention  to  the  wise  words  which  fell  at 
intervals  from  the  lips  of  the  head  of  the  family  or 
tribe. 

Altogether,  Don  Anastacio  in  his  ringlets  was  an 
inel¥ectual,  colourless,  ef¥eminate  person,  a  perfect  con- 
trast to  his  ugly,  barrel-shaped,  badly-dressed  but  ro- 
bust-minded neighbour,  Gandara.  Yet  he  too  had 
a  taste  in  animals  which  distinguished  him  among  his 
fellow-landowners,  and  even  reminded  one  of  Gandara 
in  a  ridiculous  way.  For  just  as  Gandara  was  devoted 
to  piebald  horses,  so  Don  Anastacio  was  devoted  to 
pigs.  It  would  not  have  been  like  him  if  these  had 
been  pigs  for  profit:  they  were  not  animals  fit  to  be 
fattened  for  the  market,  and  no  person  would  have 
thought  of  buying  such  beasts.  They  were  of  the  wild- 
pig  breed,  descended  originally  from  the  European 
animal  introduced  by  the  early  Spanish  colonists,  but 
after  two  or  three  centuries  of  feral  life  a  good  deal 
changed  in  appearance  from  their  progenitors.  This 
feral  pig  was  called  barrdco  in  the  vernacular,  and  was 
about  a  third  less  in  size  than  the  domestic  animal, 
with  longer  legs  and  more  pointed  face,  and  of  a 


HEAD  OF  A  DECAYED  HOUSE  171 


uniform  dtep  rust-red  in  colour.  Among  hundreds  I 
never  saw  one  with  any  black  or  white  on  it. 

I  believe  that  before  Don  Anastacio's  time  a  few 
of  these  wild  pigs  had  been  kept  as  a  curiosity  at  the 
estancia,  and  that  when  he  came  into  possession  he 
allowed  them  to  increase  and  roam  in  herds  all  over 
the  place,  doing  much  harm  by  rooting  up  many  acres 
of  the  best  grazing  land  in  their  search  after  grubs, 
earthworms,  mole-crickets,  and  blind  snakes,  along 
with  certain  roots  and  bulbs  which  they  liked.  This 
was  their  only  provender  when  there  happened  to  be 
no  carcasses  of  cows,  horses,  or  sheep  for  them  to  feed 
on  in  company  with  the  dogs  and  carrion  hawks.  He 
would  not  allow  his  pigs  to  be  killed,  but  probably 
his  poor  relations  and  pensioners  were  out  occasionally 
by  night  to  stick  a  pig  when  beef  and  mutton  were 
wanting.  I  never  tasted  or  wanted  to  taste  their  flesh. 
The  gaucho  is  inordinately  fond  of  the  two  gamiest- 
flavoured  animals  in  the  pampas — the  ostrich  or  rhea 
and  the  hairy  armadillo.  These  I  could  eat  and  en- 
joy eating,  although  I  was  often  told  by  English  friends 
that  they  were  too  strong  for  their  stomachs;  but  the 
very  thought  of  this  wild  pig-flesh  produced  a  sensa- 
tion of  disgust. 

One  day  when  I  was  about  eight  years  old  I  was 
riding  home  at  a  lonely  spot  three  or  four  miles  out, 
going  at  a  fast  gallop  by  a  narrow  path  through  a  dense 
growth  of  giant  thistles  seven  or  eight  feet  high,  when 
all  at  once  I  saw  a  few  yards  before  me  a  big  round 
heap  of  thistle  plants,  which  had  been  plucked  up 
entire  and  built  into  a  shelter  from  the  hot  sun  about 
four  feet  high.    As  I  came  close  to  it  a  loud  savage 


172  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

grunt  and  the  squealing  of  many  little  piglets  issued 
from  the  mound,  and  out  from  it  rushed  a  furious  red 
sow  and  charged  me.  The  pony  suddenly  swerved 
aside  in  terror,  throwing  me  completely  over  on  one 
side,  but  luckily  I  had  instinctively  gripped  the  mane 
with  both  hands,  and  with  a  violent  effort  succeeded 
in  getting  a  leg  back  over  the  horse,  and  we  swiftly 
left  the  dangerous  enemy  behind.  Then,  remember- 
ing all  I  had  been  told  about  the  ferocity  of  these  pigs, 
it  struck  me  that  I  had  had  an  extremely  narrow  escape, 
since  if  I  had  been  thrown  off  the  savage  beast  would 
have  had  me  at  her  mercy  and  would  have  certainly 
killed  me  in  a  couple  of  minutes;  and  as  she  was  prob- 
ably mad  with  hunger  and  thirst  in  that  lonely  hot 
spot,  with  a  lot  of  young  to  feed,  it  would  not  have 
taken  her  long  to  devour  me,  bones  and  boots  included. 

This  set  me  thinking  on  the  probable  effect  of  my 
disappearance,  of  my  mother's  terrible  anxiety,  and 
what  they  would  think  and  do  about  it.  They  would 
know  from  the  return  of  the  pony  that  I  had  fallen 
somewhere :  they  would  have  searched  for  me  all  over 
the  surrounding  plain,  especially  in  all  the  wilder, 
lonelier  places  where  birds  breed;  on  lands  where  the 
cardoon  thistle  flourished  most,  and  in  the  vast  beds  of 
bulrushes  in  the  marshes,  but  would  not  have  found 
me.  And  at  length  when  the  searching  was  all  over, 
some  gaucho  riding  by  that  cattle-path  through  the 
thistles  would  catch  sight  of  a  piece  of  cloth,  a  portion 
of  a  boy's  garment,  and  the  secret  of  my  end  would 
be  discovered. 

I  had  never  liked  the  red  pigs,  on  account  of  the 
way  they  ploughed  up  and  disfigured  the  beautiful 


HEAD  OF  A  DECAYED  HOUSE  173 


green  sward  with  their  iron-hard  snouts,  also  because  of 
the  powerful  and  disgusting  smell  they  emitted,  but 
after  this  adventure  with  the  sow  the  feeling  was  much 
stronger,  and  I  wondered  more  and  more  why  that 
beautiful  soul,  Don  Anastacio,  cherished  an  affection 
for  such  detestable  beasts. 

In  spring  and  early  summer  the  low-lying  areas  about 
Canada  Seca  were  pleasant  places  to  see  and  ride  on 
where  the  pigs  had  not  defaced  them :  they  kept  their 
bright  verdure  when  the  higher  grounds  were  parched 
and  brown;  then  too,  after  rain,  they  were  made  beau- 
tiful with  the  bright  little  yellow  flower  called 
mdcachina. 

As  the  mdcachina  was  the  first  wild  flower  to  blossom 
in  the  land  it  had  as  great  an  attraction  to  us  children 
as  the  wild  strawberry,  ground-ivy,  celandine,  and 
other  first  blooms  for  the  child  in  England.  Our  liking 
for  our  earliest  flower  was  all  the  greater  because  we 
could  eat  it  and  liked  its  acid  taste,  also  because  it 
had  a  bulb  very  nice  to  eat — a  small  round  bulb  the  size 
of  a  hazel  nut,  of  a  pearly  white,  which  tasted  like 
sugar  and  water.  That  little  sweetness  was  enough  to 
set  us  all  digging  the  bulbs  up  with  tableknives,  but 
even  little  children  can  value  things  for  their  beauty  as 
well  as  taste.  The  mdcachina  was  like  the  wood-sorrel 
in  shape,  both  flower  and  leaf,  but  the  leaves  were 
much  smaller  and  grew  close  to  the  ground,  as  the 
plant  flourished  most  where  the  grass  was  close-cropped 
by  the  sheep,  forming  a  smooth  turf  like  that  of  our 
chalk  downs.  The  flowers  were  never  crowded  to- 
gether like  the  buttercup,  forming  sheets  of  shining  yel- 
low, but  grew  two  or  three  inches  apart,  each  slender 


174  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

stem  producing  a  single  flower,  which  stood  a  couple  of 
inches  above  the  turf.  So  fine  were  the  stems  that  the 
slightest  breath  of  wind  would  set  the  blossoms  sway- 
ing, and  it  was  then  a  pretty  sight,  and  often  held  me 
motionless  in  the  midst  of  some  green  place,  when  all 
around  me  for  hundreds  of  yards  the  green  carpet  of 
grass  was  abundantly  sprinkled  with  thousands  of  the 
little  yellow  blossoms  all  swaying  to  the  light  wind. 

These  green  level  lands  were  also  a  favourite  haunt 
of  the  golden  plover  on  their  first  arrival  in  September 
from  their  breeding-places  many  thousands  of  miles 
away  in  the  arctic  regions.  Later  in  the  season,  as  the 
water  dried  up,  they  would  go  elsewhere.  They  came 
in  flocks  and  were  then  greatly  esteemed  as  a  table- 
bird,  especially  by  my  father,  but  we  could  only  have 
them  when  one  of  my  elder  brothers,  who  was  the 
sportsman  of  the  family,  went  out  to  shoot  them.  As 
a  very  small  boy  I  was  not  allowed  to  use  a  gun,  but  as 
I  had  been  taught  to  throw  the  bolas  by  the  little  native 
boys  I  sometimes  associated  with,  I  thought  I  might 
be  able  to  procure  a  few  of  the  birds  with  it.  The 
holas,  used  for  such  an  object,  is  a  string  a  couple  of 
yards  long,  made  from  fine  threads  cut  from  a  colt's 
hide,  twisted  or  braided,  and  a  leaden  ball  at  each  end, 
one  being  the  size  of  a  hen's  egg,  the  other  less  than 
half  the  size.  The  small  ball  is  held  in  the  hand,  the 
other  swung  round  three  or  four  times  and  the  holas 
then  launched  at  the  animal  or  bird  one  wishes  to 
capture. 

I  spent  many  hours  on  several  consecutive  days 
following  the  flocks  about  on  my  pony,  hurling  the 
holas  at  them  without  bringing  down  more  than  one 


HEAD  OF  A  DECAYED  HOUSE  175 


bird.  My  proceedings  were  no  doubt  watched  with 
amusement  by  the  people  of  the  estancia  house,  who 
were  often  sitting  out  of  doors  at  the  everlasting  mate- 
drinking;  and  perhaps  Don  Anastacio  did  not  like  it, 
as  he  was,  I  imagine,  something  of  a  St.  Francis  with 
regard  to  the  lower  animals.  He  certainly  loved  his 
abominable  pigs.  At  all  events  on  the  last  day  of  my 
vain  efforts  to  procure  golden  plover,  a  big,  bearded 
gaucho,  with  hat  stuck  on  the  back  of  his  head,  rode 
forth  from  the  house  on  a  large  horse,  and  was  passing 
at  a  distance  of  about  fifty  yards  when  he  all  at  once 
stopped,  and  turning  came  at  a  gallop  to  within  a  few 
feet  of  me  and  shouted  in  a  loud  voice :  ''Why  do 
you  come  here,  English  boy,  frightening  and  chasing 
away  God's  little  birds?  Don't  you  know  that  they 
do  no  harm  to  any  one,  and  it  is  wrong  to  hurt  them?" 
And  with  that  he  galloped  off. 

I  was  angry  at  being  rebuked  by  an  ignorant  ruffianly 
gaucho,  who  like  most  of  his  kind  would  tell  lies, 
gamble,  cheat,  fight,  steal,  and  do  other  naughty  things 
without  a  qualm.  Besides,  it  struck  me  as  funny  to 
hear  the  golden  plover,  which  I  wanted  for  the  table, 
called  "God's  little  birds,"  just  as  if  they  were  wrens  or 
swallows  or  humming-birds,  or  the  darling  little  many- 
coloured  kinglet  of  the  bulrush  beds.  But  I  was 
ashamed,  too,  and  gave  up  the  chase. 

The  nearest  of  the  moist  green  low-lying  spots  I 
have  described  as  lying  south  of  us,  between  our  house 
and  Canada  Seca,  was  not  more  than  twenty  minutes' 
walk  from  the  gate.  It  was  a  flat,  oval-shaped  area  of 
about  fifty  acres,  and  kept  its  vivid  green  colour  and 
freshness  when  in  January  the  surrounding  land  was  all 


176  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

of  a  rusty  brown  colour.  It  was  to  us  a  delightful 
spot  to  run  about  and  play  on,  and  though  the  golden 
plover  did  not  come  there  it  was  haunted  during  the 
summer  by  small  flocks  of  the  pretty  bufif-coloured 
sandpiper,  a  sandpiper  with  the  habits  of  a  plover, 
one,  too,  which  breeds  in  the  arctic  regions  and  spends 
half  the  year  in  southern  South  America.  This  green 
area  would  become  flooded  after  heavy  rains.  It  was 
then  like  a  vast  lake  to  us,  although  the  water  was  not 
more  than  about  three  feet  deep,  and  at  such  times  it 
was  infested  with  the  big  venomous  toad-like  creature 
called  esciierzo  in  the  vernacular,  which  simply  means 
toad,  but  naturalists  have  placed  it  in  quite  a  different 
family  of  the  batrachians  and  call  it  Ceratophrys  ornata 
It  is  toad-like  in  form  but  more  lumpish,  with  a  bigger 
head;  it  is  big  as  a  man's  fist,  of  a  vivid  green  with 
black  symmetrical  markings  on  its  back,  and  primrose- 
yellow  beneath.  A  dreadful  looking  creature,  a  toad 
that  preys  on  the  real  or  common  toads,  swallowing 
them  alive  just  as  the  hamadryad  swallows  other  ser- 
pents, venomous  or  not,  and  as  the  Cribo  of  Martinique, 
a  big  non-venomous  serpent,  kills  and  swallows  the 
deadly  fer-de-lance. 

In  summer  we  had  no  fear  of  this  creature,  as  it 
buries  itself  in  the  soil  and  sestivates  during  the  hot, 
dry  season,  and  comes  forth  in  wet  weather.  I  never 
knew  any  spot  where  these  creatures  were  more  abun- 
dant than  in  that  winter  lake  of  ours,  and  at  night 
in  the  flooded  time  we  used  to  lie  awake  listening  to 
their  concerts.  The  Ceratophrys  croaks  when  angry, 
and  as  it  is  the  most  truculent  of  all  batrachians  it 
works  itself  into  a  rage  if  you  go  near  it.    Its  first 


HEAD  OF  A  DECAYED  HOUSE  177 


ef¥orts  at  chanting  or  singing  sounds  like  the  deep, 
harsh,  anger-croak  prolonged,  but  as  the  time  goes  on 
they  gradually  acquire,  night  by  night,  a  less  raucous 
and  a  louder,  more  sustained  and  far-reaching  sound. 
There  was  always  very  great  variety  in  the  tones;  and 
while  some  continued  deep  and  harsh — the  harshest 
sound  in  nature — others  were  clearer  and  not  unmusi- 
cal; and  in  a  large  number  there  were  always  a  few  in 
the  scattered  choir  that  out-soared  all  the  others  in  high, 
long-drawn  notes,  almost  organ-like  in  quality. 

Listening  to  their  varied  performance  one  night  as 
we  lay  in  bed,  my  sporting  brother  proposed  that  on 
the  following  morning  we  should  drag  one  of  the 
cattle-troughs  to  the  lake  to  launch  it  and  go  on  a 
voyage  in  quest  of  these  dangerous,  hateful  creatures 
and  slay  them  with  our  javelins.  It  was  not  an  im- 
possible scheme,  since  the  creatures  were  to  be  seen  at 
this  season  swimming  or  floating  on  the  surface,  and  in 
our  boat  or  canoe  we  should  also  detect  them  as  they 
moved  about  over  the  green  sward  at  the  bottom. 

Accordingly,  next  morning  after  breakfast  we  set 
out,  without  imparting  our  plans  to  any  one,  and  with 
great  labour  dragged  the  trough  to  the  water.  It  was 
a  box-shaped  thing,  about  twenty  feet  long  and  two 
feet  wide  at  the  bottom  and  three  at  the  top.  We 
were  also  provided  with  three  javelins,  one  for  each  of 
us,  from  my  brother's  extensive  armoury. 

He  had  about  that  time  been  reading  ancient  history, 
and  fired  with  the  story  of  old  wars  when  men  fought 
hand  to  hand,  he  had  dropped  guns  and  pistols  for  the 
moment  and  set  himself  with  furious  zeal  to  manu- 
facture the  ancient  weapons — bows  and  arrows,  pikes, 


178  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

shield,  battle-axes  and  javelins.  These  last  were  sticks 
about  six  feet  long,  nicely  made  of  pine-wood — he  had 
no  doubt  bribed  the  carpenter  to  make  them  for  him — 
and  pointed  with  old  knife-blades  six  or  seven  inches 
long,  ground  to  a  fearful  sharpness.  Such  formidable 
weapons  were  not  required  for  our  purpose:  they 
would  have  served  well  enough  if  we  had  been  going 
out  against  Don  Anastacio's  fierce  and  powerful  swine; 
but  it  was  his  order,  and  to  his  wild  and  warlike  imag- 
ination the  toad-like  creatures  were  the  warriors  of 
some  hostile  tribe  opposing  us,  I  forget  if  in  Asia  or 
Africa,  which  had  to  be  conquered  and  extirpated. 

No  sooner  had  we  got  into  our  long,  awkwardly- 
shaped  boat  than  it  capsized  and  threw  us  all  into  the 
water;  that  was  but  the  first  of  some  dozens  of  upsets 
and  fresh  drenchings  we  experienced  during  the  day. 
However,  we  succeeded  in  circumnavigating  the  lake 
and  crossing  it  two  or  three  times  from  side  to  side, 
and  in  slaying  seventy  or  eighty  of  the  enemy  with  our 
javelins. 

At  length,  when  the  short,  mid-winter  day  was  in  its 
decline,  and  we  were  all  feeling  stiff  and  cold  and  half- 
famished,  our  commander  thought  proper  to  bring  the 
great  lake  battle,  with  awful  slaughter  of  our  barbarian 
foes,  to  an  end,  and  we  wearily  trudged  home  in  our 
soaking  clothes  and  squeaking  shoes.  We  were  too 
tired  to  pay  much  heed  to  the  little  sermon  we  had  ex- 
pected, and  glad  to  get  into  dry  clothes  and  sit  down 
to  food  and  tea.  Then  to  sit  by  the  fire  as  close  as  we 
could  get  to  it,  until  we  all  began  to  sneeze  and  to  feel 
our  throats  getting  sore  and  our  faces  burning  hot. 
And,  finally,  when  we  went  burning  and  shivering  with 


HEAD  OF  A  DECAYED  HOUSE  179 


cold  to  bed  we  could  not  sleep;  and  hark!  the  grand 
nightly  chorus  was  going  on  just  as  usual.  No,  in 
spite  of  the  great  slaughter  we  had  not  exterminated 
the  enemy;  on  the  contrary,  they  appeared  to  be  re- 
joicing over  a  great  victory,  especially  when  high  above 
the  deep  harsh  notes  the  long-drawn,  organ-like  sounds 
of  the  leaders  were  heard. 

How  I  then  wished,  when  tossing  and  burning  fever- 
ishly in  bed,  that  I  had  rebelled  and  refused  to  take 
part  in  that  day's  adventure!  I  was  too  young  for  it, 
and  again  and  again,  when  thrusting  one  of  the  crea- 
tures through  with  my  javeline,  I  had  experienced  a 
horrible  disgust  and  shrinking  at  the  spectacle.  Now 
in  my  wakeful  hours,  with  that  tremendous  chanting 
in  my  ears,  it  all  came  back  to  me  and  was  like  a 
nightmare. 


CHAPTER  XIII 
A  Patriarch  of  the  Pampas 

The  grand  old  man  of  the  plains — Don  Evaristo  Penalva, 
the  Patriarch — My  first  sight  of  his  estancia  house — 
Don  Evaristo  described — A  husband  of  six  wives — 
How  he  was  esteemed  and  loved  by  every  one — On 
leaving  home  I  lose  sight  of  Don  Evaristo — I  meet 
him  again  after  seven  years — His  faihng  health — His 
old  first  wife  and  her  daughter,  Cipriana — The  tragedy 
of  Cipriana — Don  Evaristo  dies  and  I  lose  sight  of  the 
family. 

Patriarchs  were  fairly  common  in  the  land  of  my 
nativity :  grave,  dignified  old  men  with  imposing  beards, 
owners  of  land  and  cattle  and  many  horses,  though 
many  of  them  could  not  spell  their  own  names;  hand- 
some too,  some  of  them  with  regular  features,  descend- 
ants of  good  old  Spanish  families  who  colonized  the 
wide  pampas  in  the  seventeenth  and  early  eighteenth 
centuries.  I  do  not  think  I  have  got  one  of  this  sort 
in  the  preceding  chapters  which  treat  of  our  neighbours, 
unless  it  be  Don  Anastacio  Buenavida  of  the  corkscrew 
curls  and  quaint  taste  in  pigs.  Certainly  he  was  of  the 
old  landowning  class,  and  in  his  refined  features  and 
delicate  little  hands  and  feet  gave  evidence  of  good 
blood,  but  the  marks  of  degeneration  were  equally  plain ; 
he  was  an  eflfeminate,  futile  person,  and  not  properly  to 

i8o 


A  PATRIARCH  OF  THE  PAMPAS  i8i 


be  ranked  with  the  patriarchs.  His  ugly  grotesque 
neighbour  of  the  piebald  horses  was  more  like  one. 
I  described  the  people  that  lived  nearest  to  us,  our 
next-door  neighbours  so  to  speak,  because  I  knew 
them  from  childhood  and  followed  their  fortunes  when 
I  grew  up,  and  was  thus  able  to  give  their  complete 
history.  The  patriarchs,  the  grand  old  gaucho  estan- 
cieros,  I  came  to  know,  were  scattered  all  over  the  land, 
but,  with  one  exception,  I  did  not  know  them  intimately 
from  childhood,  and  though  I  could  fill  this  chapter 
with  their  portraits  I  prefer  to  give  it  all  to  the  one  I 
knew  best,  Don  Evaristo  Pefialva,  a  very  fine  patriarch 
indeed. 

I  cannot  now  remember  when  I  first  made  his  ac- 
quaintance, but  I  was  not  quite  six,  though  very  near 
it,  when  I  had  my  first  view  of  his  house.  In  the 
chapter  on  "Some  Early  Bird  Adventures,"  I  have 
described  my  first  long  walk  on  the  plains,  when  two 
of  my  brothers  took  me  to  a  river  some  distance  from 
home,  where  I  was  enchanted  with  my  first  sight  of 
that  glorious  waterfowl,  the  flamingo.  Now,  as  we 
stood  on  the  brink  of  the  flowing  water,  which  had  a 
width  of  about  two  hundred  yards  at  that  spot  when 
the  river  had  overflowed  its  banks,  one  of  my  elder 
brothers  pointed  to  a  long  low  house,  thatched  with 
rushes,  about  three-quarters  of  a  mile  distant  on  the 
other  side  of  the  stream,  and  informed  me  that  it  was 
the  estancia  house  of  Don  Evaristo  Penalva,  who  was 
one  of  the  principal  landowners  in  that  part. 

That  was  one  of  the  images  my  mind  received  on 
that  adventurous  day  which  have  not  faded — the  long, 
low,  mud  built  house,  standing  on  the  wide,  empty, 


i82  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

treeless  plain,  with  three  ancient,  half-dead,  crooked 
acacia  trees  growing  close  to  it,  and  a  little  further 
away  a  corral  or  cattle-enclosure  and  a  sheep-fold.  It 
was  a  poor,  naked,  dreary-looking  house  without  garden 
or  shade,  and  I  dare  say  a  little  English  boy  six  years 
old  would  have  smiled,  a  little  incredulous,  to  be  told 
that  it  was  the  residence  of  one  of  the  principal  land- 
owners in  that  part. 

Then,  as  we  have  seen,  I  got  my  horse,  and  being 
delivered  from  the  fear  of  evil-minded  cows  with  long, 
sharp  horns,  I  spent  a  good  deal  of  my  time  on  the 
plain,  where  I  made  the  acquaintance  of  other  small 
boys  on  horseback,  who  took  me  to  their  homes  and 
introduced  me  to  their  people.  In  this  way  I  came  to 
be  a  visitor  to  that  lonely-looking  house  on  the  other 
side  of  the  river,  and  to  know  all  the  interesting  people 
in  it,  including  Don  Evaristo  himself,  its  lord  and 
master.  He  was  a  middle-aged  man  at  that  date,  of 
medium  height,  very  white-skinned,  with  long  black 
hair  and  full  beard,  straight  nose,  fine  broad  forehead, 
with  large  dark  eyes.  He  was  slow  and  deliberate  in 
all  his  movements,  grave,  dignified,  and  ceremonious 
in  his  manner  and  speech;  but  in  spite  of  this  lofty 
air  he  was  known  to  have  a  sweet  and  gentle  disposition 
and  was  friendly  towards  every  one,  even  to  small  boys 
who  are  naturally  naughty  and  a  nuisance  to  their 
elders.  And  so  it  came  about  that  even  as  a  very  small 
shy  boy,  a  stranger  in  the  house,  I  came  to  know  that 
Don  Evaristo  was  not  one  to  be  afraid  of. 

I  hope  that  the  reader,  forgetting  all  he  has  learnt 
about  the  domestic  life  of  the  patriarchs  of  an  older 
time,  will  not  begin  to  feel  disgusted  at  Don  Evaristo 


A  PATRIARCH  OF  THE  PAMPAS  183 


when  I  proceed  to  say  that  he  was  the  husband  of  six 
wives,  all  living  with  him  at  that  same  house.  The 
first,  the  only  one  he  had  been  permitted  to  marry  in  ? 
church,  was  old  as  or  rather  older  than  himself ;  she 
was  very  dark  and  was  getting  wrinkles,  and  was  the 
mother  of  several  grown-up  sons  and  daughters,  some 
married.  The  others  were  of  various  ages,  the  young- 
est two  about  thirty;  and  these  were  twin  sisters,  both 
named  Ascension,  for  they  were  both  born  on  Ascen- 
sion Day,  So  much  alike  were  these  Ascensions  in 
face  and  figure  that  one  day,  when  I  was  a  big  boy, 
I  went  into  the  house  and  finding  one  of  the  sisters 
there  began  relating  something,  when  she  was  called 
out.  Presently  she  came  back,  as  I  thought,  and  I 
went  on  with  my  story  just  where  I  had  left  off,  and 
only  when  I  saw  the  look  of  surprise  and  inquiry  on 
her  face  did  I  discover  that  I  was  now  talking  to  the 
other  sister. 

How  was  this  man  with  six  wives  regarded  by  his 
neighbours?  He  was  esteemed  and  beloved  above  most 
men  in  his  position.  If  any  person  was  in  trouble 
or  distress,  or  suffering  from  a  w^ound  or  some  secret 
malady,  he  would  go  to  Don  Evaristo  for  advice  and 
assistance  and  for  such  remedies  as  he  knew;  and  if 
he  was  sick  unto  death  he  would  send  for  Don  Eva- 
risto to  come  to  him  to  write  down  his  last  will  and 
testament.  For  Don  Evaristo  knew  his  letters  and 
had  the  reputation  of  a  learned  man  among  the  gau- 
chos.  They  considered  him  better  than  any  one  calling 
himself  a  doctor.  I  remember  that  his  cure  for 
shingles,  a  common  and  dangerous  ailment  in  that 
region,  was  regarded  as  infallible.    The  malady  took 


i84  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

the  form  of  an  eruption,  like  erysipelas,  on  the  middle 
of  the  body  and  extending  round  the  waist  till  it  formed 
a  perfect  zone.  ''If  the  zone  is  not  complete  I  can 
cure  the  disease,''  Don  Evaristo  would  say.  He  would 
send  some  one  down  to  the  river  to  procure  a  good- 
sized  toad,  then  causing  the  patient  to  strip,  he  would 
take  pen  and  ink  and  write  on  the  skin  in  the  space 
between  the  two  ends  of  the  inflamed  region,  in  stout 
letters,  the  words.  In  the  name  of  the  Father,  etc.  This 
done,  he  would  take  the  toad  in  his  hand  and  gently 
rub  it  on  the  inflamed  part,  and  the  toad,  enraged  at 
such  treatment,  would  swell  himself  up  almost  to 
bursting  and  exude  a  poisonous  milky  secretion  from 
his  warty  skin.    That  was  all,  and  the  man  got  well! 

If  it  pleased  such  a  man  as  that  to  have  six  wives 
instead  of  one  it  was  right  and  proper  for  him  to  have 
them;  no  person  would  presume  to  say  that  he  was 
not  a  good  and  wise  and  religious  man  on  that  account. 
It  may  be  added  that  Don  Evaristo,  like  Henry  VIII, 
who  also  had  six  wives,  was  a  strictly  virtuous  man. 
The  only  difference  was  that  when  he  desired  a  fresh 
wife  he  did  not  barbarously  execute  or  put  away  the 
one,  or  the  others,  he  already  possessed. 

I  lost  sight  of  Don  Evaristo  when  I  was  sixteen, 
having  gone  to  live  in  another  district  about  thirty 
miles  from  my  old  home.  He  was  then  just  at  the 
end  of  the  middle  period  of  life,  with  a  few  grey  hairs 
beginning  to  show  in  his  black  beard,  but  he  was  still 
a  strong  man  and  more  children  were  being  added  to 
his  numerous  family.  Some  time  later  I  heard  that  he 
had  acquired  a  second  estate  a  long  day's  journey  on 
horseback  from  the  first,  and  that  some  of  his  wives 


A  PATRIARCH  OF  THE  PAMPAS  185 

and  children  had  emigrated  to  the  new  esctancia  and  that 
he  divided  his  time  between  the  two  establishments. 
But  his  people  were  not  wholly  separated  from  each 
other;  from  time  to  time  some  of  them  would  take 
the  long  journey  to  visit  the  absent  ones  and  there 
would  be  an  exchange  of  homes  between  them.  For, 
incredible  as  it  may  seem,  they  were  in  spirit,  or  ap- 
peared to  be,  a  united  family. 

Seven  years  had  passed  since  I  lost  sight  of  them, 
when  it  chanced  that  I  was  travelling  home  from  the 
southern  frontier  with  only  two  horses  to  carry  me. 
One  gave  out,  and  I  was  compelled  to  leave  him  on 
the  road.  I  put  up  that  evening  at  a  little  wayside 
pulperia,  or  public-house,  and  was  hospitably  enter- 
tained by  the  landlord,  who  turned  out  to  be  an  English- 
man. But  he  had  lived  so  long  among  the  gauchos, 
having  left  his  country  when  very  young,  that  he 
had  almost  forgotten  his  own  language.  Again  and 
again  during  the  evening  he  started  talking  in  English 
as  if  glad  of  the  opportunity  to  speak  his  native  tongue 
once  more;  but  after  a  sentence  or  two  a  word  wanted 
would  not  come,  and  it  would  have  to  be  spoken  in 
Spanish,  and  gradually  he  would  relapse  into  unadul- 
terated Spanish  again,  then,  becoming  conscious  of  the 
relapse,  he  would  make  a  fresh  start  in  English. 

As  we  sat  talking  after  supper  I  expressed  my  in- 
tention of  leaving  early  in  the  morning  so  as  to  get 
over  a  few  leagues  while  it  was  fresh,  as  the  weather 
was  very  hot  and  I  had  to  consider  my  one  horse.  He 
was  sorry  not  to  be  able  to  provide  me  with  another, 
but  at  one  of  the  large  estancias  I  would  come  to  next 
morning  I  would  no  doubt  be  able  to  get  one.  He 


i86  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

then  mentioned  that  in  about  an  hour  and  a  half  or  two 
hours  I  should  arrive  at  an  estancia  named  La  Paja 
Brava,  where  many  riding-horses  were  kept. 

This  was  good  news  indeed!  La  Paja  Brava  w^as 
the  name  of  the  estate  my  ancient  friend  and  neigh- 
bour, Don  Evaristo,  had  bought  so  many  years  before: 
no  doubt  I  should  find  some  of  the  family,  and  they 
would  give  me  a  horse  and  anything  I  wanted. 

The  house,  when  I  approached  it  next  morning, 
strongly  reminded  me  of  the  old  home  of  the  family 
many  leagues  away,  only  it  was  if  possible  more  lonely 
and  dreary  in  appearance,  without  even  an  old  half- 
dead  acacia  tree  to  make  it  less  desolate.  The  plain 
all  round  as  far  as  one  could  see  was  absolutely  flat 
and  treeless,  the  short  grass  burnt  by  the  January  sun 
to  a  yellowish-brown  colour;  while  at  the  large  water- 
ing-well, half  a  mile  distant,  the  cattle  were  gathering 
in  vast  numbers,  bellowing  with  thirst  and  raising 
clouds  of  dust  in  their  struggles  to  get  to  the  trough. 

I  found  Don  Evaristo  himself  in  the  house,  and  with 
him  his  first  and  oldest  wife,  with  several  of  the  grown- 
up children.  I  was  grieved  to  see  the  change  in  my 
old  friend;  he  had  aged  greatly  in  seven  years;  his 
face  was  now  white  as  alabaster,  and  his  full  beard  and 
long  hair  quite  grey.  He  was  suffering  from  some 
internal  malady,  and  spent  most  of  the  day  in  the  large 
kitchen  and  living-room,  resting  in  an  easy-chair.  The 
fire  burnt  all  day  in  the  hearth  in  the  middle  of  the 
clay  floor,  and  the  women  served  mate  and  did  their 
work  in  a  quiet  way,  talking  the  while;  and  all  day 
long  the  young  men  and  big  boys  came  and  went, 
coming  in,  one  or  two  at  a  time,  to  sip  mate,  smoke, 


A  PATRIARCH  OF  THE  PAMPAS  187 


and  tell  the  news — the  state  of  the  well,  the  time  the 
water  would  last,  the  condition  of  the  cattle,  of  horses 
strayed,  and  so  on. 

The  old  first  wife  had  also  aged — her  whole  dark, 
anxious  face  had  been  covered  with  little  interlacing 
wrinkles;  but  the  greatest  change  was  in  the  eldest 
child,  her  daughter  Cipriana,  who  was  living  perma- 
nently at  La  Paja  Brava.  The  old  mother  had  a  dash 
of  dark  or  negrine  blood  in  her  veins,  and  this  strain 
came  out  strongly  in  the  daughter,  a  tall  woman  with 
lustreless  crinkled  hair  of  a  wrought-iron  colour,  large 
voluptuous  mouth,  pale  dark  skin,  and  large  dark 
sad  eyes. 

I  remembered  that  they  had  not  always  been  sad, 
for  I  had  known  her  in  her  full  bloom — an  imposing 
woman,  her  eyes  sparkling  with  intense  fire  and  passion, 
who,  despite  her  coarse  features  and  dark  skin,  had  a 
kind  of  strange  wild  beauty  which  attracted  men.  Un- 
happily she  placed  her  af¥ections  on  the  wrong  person, 
a  dashing  young  gaucho  who,  albeit  landless  and  poor 
in  cattle,  made  a  brave  appearance,  especially  when 
mounted  and  when  man  and  horse  glittered  with  silver 
ornaments.  I  recalled  how  one  of  my  last  sights  of 
her  had  been  on  a  Sunday  morning  in  summer  when  I 
had  ridden  to  a  spot  on  the  plain  where  it  was  over- 
grown with  giant  thistles,  standing  about  ten  feet  high, 
in  full  flower  and  filling  the  hot  air  with  their  perfume. 
There,  in  a  small  open  grassy  space  I  had  dismounted 
to  watch  a  hawk,  in  hopes  of  finding  its  nest  concealed 
somewhere  among  the  thistles  close  by.  And  presently 
two  persons  came  at  a  swift  gallop  by  the  narrow  path 
through  the  thistles,  and  bursting  out  into  that  small 


i88  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

Open  spot  I  saw  that  it  was  Cipriana,  in  a  white  dress, 
on  a  big  bay  horse,  and  her  lover,  who  was  leading  the 
way.  Catching  sight  of  me  they  threw  me  a  '*Good 
morning"  and  galloped  on,  laughing  gaily  at  the  unex- 
pected encounter.  I  thought  that  in  her  white  dress, 
with  the  hot  sun  shining  on  her,  her  face  flushed  with 
excitement,  on  her  big  spirited  horse,  she  looked  splen- 
did that  morning. 

But  she  gave  herself  too  freely  to  her  lover,  and 
by  and  by  there  was  a  difference,  and  he  rode  away  to 
return  no  more.  It  was  hard  for  her  then  to  face  her 
neighbours,  and  eventually  she  went  away  with  her 
mother  to  live  at  the  new  estancia;  but  even  now  at 
this  distance  of  time  it  is  a  pain  to  remember  her  when 
her  image  comes  back  to  my  mind  as  I  saw  her  on 
that  chance  visit  to  La  Paja  Brava. 

Every  evening  during  my  stay,  aftei  mate  had  been 
served  and  there  was  a  long  vacant  interval  before 
night,  she  would  go  out  from  the  gate  to  a  distance 
of  fifty  or  sixty  yards,  where  an  old  log  was  lying  on  a 
piece  of  waste  ground  overgrown  with  nettles,  burdock, 
and  redweed,  now  dead  and  brown,  and  sitting  on  the 
log,  her  chin  resting  on  her  hand,  she  would  fix  her 
eyes  on  the  dusty  road  half  a  mile  away,  and  motion- 
less in  that  dejected  attitude  she  would  remain  for 
about  an  hour.  When  you  looked  closely  at  her  you 
could  see  her  lips  moving,  and  if  you  came  quite  near 
her  you  could  hear  her  talking  in  a  very  low  voice, 
but  she  would  not  lift  her  gaze  from  the  road  nor  seem 
to  be  aware  of  your  presence.  The  fit  or  dream  over, 
she  would  get  up  and  return  to  the  house,  where  she 
would  quietly  set  to  work  with  the  other  women  in 


A  PATRIARCH  OF  THE  PAMPAS  189 


preparing  the  great  meal  of  the  day — the  late  supper 
of  roast  and  boiled  meat,  when  all  the  men  would  be 
back  from  their  work  with  the  cattle. 

That  was  my  last  sight  of  Cipriana;  what  her  end 
was  I  never  heard,  nor  what  was  done  with  the  Paja 
Brava  after  the  death  of  Don  Evaristo,  who  was 
gathered  to  his  fathers  a  year  or  so  after  my  visit.  I 
only  know  that  the  old  place  where  as  a  child  I  first 
knew  him,  where  his  cattle  and  horses  grazed  and  the 
stream  where  they  were  watered  was  alive  with  herons 
and  spoonbills,  black-necked  swans,  glossy  ibises  in 
clouds,  and  great  blue  ibises  with  resounding  voices, 
is  now  possessed  by  aliens,  who  destroy  all  wild  bird 
life  and  grow  corn  on  the  land  for  the  markets  of 
Europe. 


CHAPTER  XIV 
The  Dovecote 

A.  favourite  climbing  tree — The  desire  to  fly — Soaring  birds 
— A  peregrine  falcon — The  dovecote  and  pigeon-pies — 
The  falcon's  depredations — A  splendid  aerial  feat — A 
secret  enemy  of  the  dovecote — A  short-eared  owl  in  a 
loft — My  father  and  birds — A  strange  flower — ^The 
owls'  nesting-place — Great  owl  visitations. 

By  the  side  of  the  moat  at  the  far  end  of  the  enclosed 
ground  there  grew  a  big  red  willow,  the  tree  already 
mentioned  in  a  former  chapter  as  the  second  largest 
in  the  plantation.  It  had  a  thick  round  trunk,  wide- 
spreading  horizontal  branches,  and  rough  bark.  In  its 
shape,  when  the  thin  foliage  was  gone,  it  was  more 
like  an  old  oak  than  a  red  willow.  This  was  my  fa- 
vourite tree  when  I  had  once  mastered  the  difficult 
and  dangerous  art  of  climbing.  It  was  farthest  from 
the  house  of  all  the  trees,  on  a  waste  weedy  spot  which 
no  one  else  visited,  and  this  made  it  an  ideal  place  for 
me,  and  whenever  I  was  in  the  wild  arboreal  mood  I 
would  climb  the  willow  to  find  a  good  stout  branch 
high  up  on  which  to  spend  an  hour,  with  a  good  view 
of  the  wide  green  plain  before  me  and  the  sight  of 
grazing  flocks  and  herds,  and  of  houses  and  poplar 
groves  looking  blue  in  the  distance.    Here,  too,  in  this 

190 


THE  DOVECOTE  191 

tree,  I  first  felt  the  desire  for  wings,  to  dream  of  the 
delight  it  would  be  to  circle  upwards  to  a  great  height 
and  float  on  the  air  without  effort,  like  the  gull  and 
buzzard  and  harrier  and  other  great  soaring  land  and 
water  birds.  But  from  the  time  this  notion  and  desire 
began  to  affect  me  I  envied  most  the  great  crested 
screamer,  an  inhabitant  then  of  all  the  marshes  in  our 
vicinity.  For  here  was  a  bird  as  big  or  bigger  than  a 
goose,  as  heavy  almost  as  I  was  myself,  who,  when  he 
wished  to  fly,  rose  off  the  ground  with  tremendous  la- 
bour, and  then  as  he  got  higher  and  higher  flew  more 
and  more  easily,  until  he  rose  so  high  that  he  looked  no 
bigger  than  a  lark  or  pipit,  and  at  that  height  he  would 
continue  floating  round  and  round  in  vast  circles  for 
hours,  pouring  out  those  jubilant  cries  at  intervals  which 
sounded  to  us  so  far  below  like  clarion  notes  in  the  sky. 
If  I  could  only  get  off  the  ground  like  that  heavy  bird 
and  rise  as  high,  then  the  blue  air  would  make  me  as 
buoyant  and  let  me  float  all  day  without  pain  or  effort 
like  the  bird!  This  desire  has  continued  with  me 
through  my  life,  yet  I  have  never  wished  to  fly  in  a 
balloon  or  airship,  since  I  should  then  be  tied  to  a 
machine  and  have  no  will  or  soul  of  my  own.  The 
desire  has  only  been  gratified  a  very  few  times  in  that 
kind  of  dream  called  levitation,  when  one  rises  and 
floats  above  the  earth  without  effort  and  is  like  a  ball 
of  thistledown  carried  by  the  wind. 

My  favourite  red  willow  was  also  the  chosen  haunt 
of  another  being,  a  peregrine  falcon,  a  large  handsome 
female  that  used  to  spend  some  months  each  year  with 
us,  and  would  sit  for  hours  every  day  in  the  tree.  It 
was  an  ideal  tree  for  the  falcon,  too,  not  only  because 


192  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

it  was  a  quiet  spot  where  it  could  doze  the  hot  hours 
away  in  safety,  but  also  on  account  of  the  numbers  of 
pigeons  we  used  to  keep.  The  pigeon-house,  a  round, 
tower-shaped  building,  whitewashed  outside,  with  a 
small  door  always  kept  locked,  was  usually  tenanted  by 
four  or  five  hundred  birds.  These  cost  us  nothing  to 
keep,  and  were  never  fed,  as  they  picked  up  their  own 
living  on  the  plain,  and  being  strong  fliers  and  well 
used  to  the  dangers  of  the  open  country  abounding  in 
hawks,  they  ranged  far  from  home,  going  out  in  small 
parties  of  a  dozen  or  more  to  their  various  distant 
feeding-grounds.  When  out  riding  we  used  to  come 
on  these  flocks  several  miles  from  home,  and  knew  they 
were  our  birds  since  no  one  else  in  that  neighbourhood 
kept  pigeons.  They  were  highly  valued,  especially  by 
my  father,  who  preferred  a  broiled  pigeon  to  mutton 
cutlets  for  breakfast,  and  was  also  fond  of  pigeon-pies. 
Once  or  twice  every  week,  according  to  the  season, 
eighteen  or  twenty  young  birds,  just  ready  to  leave  the 
nest,  were  taken  from  the  dovecote  to  be  put  into  a 
pie  of  gigantic  size,  and  this  was  usually  the  grandest 
dish  on  the  table  when  we  had  a  lot  of  people  to  dinner 
or  supper. 

Every  day  the  falcon,  during  the  months  she  spent 
with  us,  took  toll  of  the  pigeons,  and  though  these 
depredations  annoyed  my  father  he  did  nothing  to  stop 
them.  He  appeared  to  think  that  one  or  two  birds 
a  day  didn't  matter  much  as  the  birds  were  so  many. 
The  falcon's  custom  was,  after  dozing  a  few  hours  in 
the  willow,  to  fly  up  and  circle  high  in  the  air  above 
the  buildings,  whereupon  the  pigeons,  losing  their 
heads  in  their  terror,  would  rush  up  in  a  cloud  to 


THE  DOVECOTE 


escape  their  deadly  enemy.  This  was  exactly  what 
their  enemy  wanted  them  to  do,  and  no  sooner  would 
they  rise  to  the  proper  height  than  she  would  make 
her  swoop,  and  singling  out  her  victim  strike  it  down 
with  a  blow  of  her  lacerating  claws;  down  like  a  stone 
it  would  fall,  and  the  hawk,  after  a  moment's  pause  in 
mid-air,  would  drop  down  after  it  and  catch  it  in  her 
talons  before  it  touched  the  tree-tops,  then  carry  it 
away  to  feed  on  at  leisure  out  on  the  plain.  It  was 
a  magnificent  spectacle,  and  although  witnessed  so 
often  it  always  greatly  excited  me. 

One  day  my  father  went  to  the  galpon,  the  big  barn- 
like building  used  for  storing  wood,  hides,  and  horse- 
hair, and  seeing  him  go  up  the  ladder  I  climbed  up 
after  him.  It  was  an  immense  vacant  place  containing 
nothing  but  a  number  of  empty  cases  on  one  side  of 
the  floor  and  empty  flour-barrels,  standing  upright,  on 
the  other.  My  father  began  walking  about  among  the 
cases,  and  by  and  by  called  me  to  look  at  a  young 
pigeon,  apparently  just  killed,  which  he  had  found  in 
one  of  the  empty  boxes.  Now,  how  came  it  to  be 
there?  he  asked.  Rats,  no  doubt,  but  how  strange 
and  almost  incredible  it  seemed  that  a  rat,  however  big, 
had  been  able  to  scale  the  pigeon-house,  kill  a  pigeon 
and  drag  it  back  a  distance  of  twenty- five  yards,  then 
mount  with  it  to  the  loft,  and  after  all  that  labour  to 
leave  it  uneaten!  The  wonder  grew  when  he  began 
to  find  more  young  pigeons,  all  young  birds  almost 
of  an  age  to  have  left  the  nest,  and  only  one  or  two 
out  of  half  a  dozen  with  any  flesh  eaten. 

Here  was  an  enemy  to  the  dovecote  who  went  about 
at  night  and  did  his  killing  quietly,  unseen  by  any  one, 


194  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

and  was  ten  times  more  destructive  than  the  falcon, 
who  killed  her  adult  old  pigeon  daily  in  sight  of  all  the 
world  and  in  a  magnificent  way! 

I  left  him  pondering  over  the  mystery,  gradually 
working  himself  up  into  a  rage  against  rats,  and  went 
of¥  to  explore  among  the  empty  barrels  standing 
upright  on  the  other  side  of  the  loft. 

"Another  pigeon!''  I  shouted  presently,  filled 
with  pride  at  the  discovery  and  fishing  the  bird  up 
from  the  bottom.  He  came  over  to  me  and  began 
to  examine  the  dead  bird,  his  wrath  still  increasing; 
then  I  shouted  gleefully  again,  "Another  pigeon!'' 
and  altogether  I  shouted  "Another  pigeon!"  about 
five  times,  and  by  that  time  he  was  in  a  quite  furious 
temper.  "Rats — rats!"  he  exclaimed,  "killing  all  these 
pigeons  and  dragging  them  up  here  just  to  put  them 
away  in  empty  barrels — who  ever  heard  of  such  a 
thing!"  No  stronger  language  did  he  use.  Like  the 
vicar's  wonderfully  sober-minded  daughter,  as  described 
by  Marjory  Fleming,  "he  never  said  a  single  dam," 
for  that  was  the  sort  of  man  he  was,  but  he  went 
back  fuming  to  his  boxes. 

Meanwhile  I  continued  my  investigations,  and  by 
and  by,  peering  into  an  empty  barrel  received  one  of 
the  greatest  shocks  I  had  ever  experienced.  Down  at 
the  bottom  of  the  barrel  was  a  big  brown-and-yellow 
mottled  owl,  one  of  a  kind  I  had  never  seen,  standing 
with  its  claws  grasping  a  dead  pigeon  and  its  face 
turned  up  in  alarm  at  mine.  What  a  face  it  was! — a 
round  grey  disc,  with  black  lines  like  spokes  radiating 
from  the  centre,  where  the  beak  was,  and  the  two  wide- 
open  staring  orange-coloured  eyes,  the  wheel-like  head 


THE  DOVECOTE 


195 


surmounted  by  a  pair  of  ear-  or  horn-like  black  feathers! 
For  a  few  moments  we  stared  at  one  another,  then 
recovering  myself  I  shouted,  ''Father — an  owl!"  For 
although  I  had  never  seen  its  like  before  I  knew  it 
was  an  owl.  Not  until  that  moment  had  I  known 
any  owl  except  the  common  burrowing-owl  of  the  plain, 
a  small  grey-and-white  bird,  half  diurnal  in  its  habits, 
with  a  pretty  dove-like  voice  when  it  hooted  round  the 
house  of  an  evening. 

In  a  few  moments  my  father  came  running  over  to 
my  side,  an  iron  bar  in  his  hand,  and  looking  into  the 
barrel  began  a  furious  assault  on  the  bird.  ''This 
then  is  the  culprit!"  he  cried.  "This  is  the  rat  that 
has  been  destroying  my  birds  by  the  score!  Now  he's 
going  to  pay  for  it;"  and  so  on,  striking  down  with 
the  bar  while  the  bird  struggled  frantically  to  rise  and 
make  its  escape;  but  in  the  end  it  was  killed  and 
thrown  out  on  the  floor. 

That  was  the  first  and  only  time  I  saw  my  father 
kill  a  bird,  and  nothing  but  his  extreme  anger  against 
the  robber  of  his  precious  pigeons  would  have  made 
him  do  a  thing  so  contrary  to  his  nature.  He  was 
quite  willing  to  have  birds  killed — young  pigeons, 
wild  ducks,  plover,  snipe,  whimbrel,  tinamou  or 
partridge,  and  various  others  which  he  liked  to  eat — 
but  the  killing  always  had  to  be  done  by  others.  He 
hated  to  see  any  bird  killed  that  was  not  for  the  table, 
and  that  was  why  he  tolerated  the  falcon,  and  even 
allowed  a  pair  of  caranchos,  or  carrr ion-eagles — birds 
destructive  to  poultry,  and  killers  when  they  got  the 
chance  of  newly-born  lambs  and  sucking-pigs^ — to  have 
their  huge  nest  in  one  of  the  old  peach-trees  for 


196  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

several  years.  I  never  saw  him  angrier  than  once 
when  a  visitor  staying  in  the  house,  going  out  with  his 
gun  one  day  suddenly  threw  it  up  to  his  shoulder 
and  brought  down  a  passing  swallow. 

That  was  my  first  encounter  with  the  short-eared 
owl,  a  world-wandering  species,  known  famiHarly  to  the 
sportsman  in  England  as  the  October  or  woodcock 
owl;  an  inhabitant  of  the  whole  of  Europe,  also  of 
Asia,  Africa,  America,  Australasia,  and  many  Atlantic 
and  Pacific  islands.  No  other  bird  has  so  vast  a  range ; 
yet  nobody  in  the  house  could  tell  me  anything  about 
it,  excepting  that  it  was  an  owl,  which  I  knew,  and  no 
such  bird  was  found  in  our  neighbourhood.  Several 
months  later  I  found  out  more  about  it,  and  this  was 
when  I  began  to  ramble  about  the  plain  on  my  pony. 

One  of  the  most  attractive  spots  to  me  at  that  time, 
when  my  expeditions  were  not  yet  very  extended,  was 
a  low-lying  moist  stretch  of  ground  about  a  mile  and 
a  half  from  home,  where  on  account  of  the  moisture  it 
was  always  a  vivid  green.  In  spring  it  was  like  a 
moist  meadow  in  England,  a  perfect  garden  of  wild 
flowers,  and  as  it  was  liable  to  become  flooded  in  wet 
winters  it  was  avoided  by  the  vizcachas,  the  big  rodents 
that  make  their  warrens  or  villages  of  huge  burrows  all 
over  the  plain.  Here  I  used  to  go  in  quest  of  the 
most  charming  flowers  which  were  not  found  in  other 
places;  one,  a  special  favourite  on  account  of  its 
delicious  fragrance,  being  the  small  lily  called  by  the 
natives  Lagrimas  de  la  Virgin — Tears  of  the  Virgin. 
Here  at  one  spot  the  ground  to  the  extent  of  an  acre 
or  so  was  occupied  by  one  plant  of  a  peculiar  appear- 
ance, to  the  complete  exclusion  of  the  tall  grasses  and 


THE  DOVECOTE  197 

herbage  in  other  parts.  It  grew  in  little  tussocks  like 
bushes,  each  plant  composed  of  twenty  or  thirty  stalks 
of  a  woody  toughness  and  about  two  and  a  half  feet 
high.  The  stems  were  thickly  clothed  with  round 
leaves,  soft  as  velvet  to  the  touch  and  so  dark  a  green 
that  at  a  little  distance  they  looked  almost  black  against 
the  bright  green  of  the  moist  turf.  Their  beauty  was 
in  the  blossoming  season,  when  every  stem  produced 
its  dozen  or  more  flowers  growing  singly  among  the 
leaves,  in  size  and  shape  like  dog-roses,  the  petals  of 
the  purest,  loveliest  yellow.  As  the  flowers  grew  close 
to  the  stalk,  to  gather  them  it  was  necessary  to  cut  the 
stalk  at  the  root  with  all  its  leaves  and  flowers,  and 
this  I  sometimes  did  to  take  it  to  my  mother,  who  had 
a  great  love  of  wild  flowers.  But  no  sooner  would  I 
start  with  a  bunch  of  flowering  stalks  in  my  hand  than 
the  lovely  delicate  petals  would  begin  to  drop  of¥,  and 
before  I  was  half  way  home  there  would  not  be  a  petal 
left.  This  extreme  frailty  or  sensitiveness  used  to 
infect  me  with  the  notion  that  this  flower  was  some- 
thing more  than  a  mere  flower,  something  like  a 
sentient  being,  and  that  it  had  a  feeling  in  it  which 
caused  it  to  drop  its  shining  petals  and  perish  when 
removed  from  its  parent  root  and  home. 

One  day  in  the  plant's  blossoming  time,  I  was 
slowly  walking  my  pony  through  the  dark  bottle-green 
tufts,  when  a  big  yellowish-tawny  owl  got  up  a  yard 
or  so  from  the  hoofs,  and  I  instantly  recognized  it  as 
the  same  sort  of  bird  as  our  mysterious  pigeon-killer. 
And  there  on  the  ground  where  it  had  been  was  its 
nest,  just  a  slight  depression  with  a  few  dry  bents  by 
way  of  lining  and  five  round  white  eggs.    From  that 


198  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

time  I  was  a  frequent  visitor  to  the  owls,  and  for 
three  summers  they  bred  at  the  same  spot  in  spite  of 
the  anxiety  they  suffered  on  my  account,  and  I  saw 
and  grew  famihar  with  their  quaint-looking  young, 
clothed  in  white  down  and  with  long  narrow  pointed 
heads  more  like  the  heads  of  aquatic  birds  than  of 
round-headed  flat-faced  owls. 

Later,  I  became  even  better  acquainted  with  the 
short-eared  owl.  A  year  or  several  years  would  some- 
times pass  without  one  being  seen,  then  all  at  once 
they  would  come  in  numbers,  and  this  was  always 
when  there  had  been  a  great  increase  in  field  mice  and 
other  small  rodents,  and  the  owl  population  all  over 
the  country  had  in  some  mysterious  way  become  aware 
of  the  abundance  and  had  come  to  get  their  share  of 
it.  At  these  times  you  could  see  the  owls  abroad 
in  the  late  afternoon,  before  sunset,  in  quest  of  prey, 
quartering  the  ground  like  harriers,  and  dropping  sud- 
denly into  the  grass  at  intervals,  while  at  dark  the 
air  resounded  with  their  solemn  hooting,  a  sound  as 
of  a  deep-voiced  mastiff  baying  at  a  great  distance. 

As  I  have  mentioned  our  famous  pigeon-pies,  when 
describing  the  dovecote,  I  may  as  well  conclude  this 
chapter  with  a  fuller  account  of  our  way  of  living  as 
to  food,  a  fascinating  subject  to  most  persons.  The 
psychologists  tell  us  a  sad  truth  when  they  say  that 
taste,  being  the  lowest  or  least  intellectual  of  our  five 
senses,  is  incapable  of  registering  impressions  on  the 
mind;  consequently  we  cannot  recall  or  recover  van- 
ished flavours  as  we  can  recover,  and  mentally  see 
and  hear,  long  past  sights  and  sounds.     Smells,  too. 


THE  DOVECOTE 


199 


when  we  cease  smelling,  vanish  and  return  not,  only 
we  remember  that  blossoming  orange  grove  where 
we  once  walked,  and  beds  of  wild  thyme  and  penny- 
royal when  we  sat  on  the  grass,  also  flowering  bean 
and  lucerne  fields,  filled  and  fed  us,  body  and  soul, 
with  delicious  perfumes.  In  like  manner  we  can 
recollect  the  good  things  we  consumed  long  years 
ago — the  things  we  cannot  eat  now  because  we  are 
no  longer  capable  of  digesting  and  assimilating  them; 
it  is  like  recalling  past  perilous  adventures  by  land  and 
water  in  the  brave  young  days  when  we  loved  danger 
for  its  own  sake.  There  was,  for  example,  the  salad  of 
cold  sliced  potatoes  and  onions,  drenched  in  oil  and 
vinegar,  a  glorious  dish  with  cold  meat  to  go  to  bed 
on!  Also  hot  maize-meal  cakes  eaten  with  syrup  at 
breakfast,  and  other  injudicious  cakes.  As  a  rule  it  was 
a  hot  breakfast  and  midday  dinner;  an  afternoon  tea, 
with  hot  bread  and  scones  and  peach-preserve,  and  a 
late  cold  supper.  For  breakfast,  mutton  cutlets,  coffee, 
and  things  made  with  maize.  Eggs  were  plentiful — 
eggs  of  fowl,  duck,  goose,  and  wild  fowl's  eggs — wild 
duck  and  plover  in  their  season.  In  spring — August 
to  October — we  occasionally  had  an  ostrich  or  rhea's 
egg  in  the  form  of  a  huge  omelette  at  breakfast,  and 
it  was  very  good.  The  common  native  way  of  cooking 
it  by  thrusting  a  rod  heated  red  through  the  egg,  then 
burying  it  in  the  hot  ashes  to  complete  the  cooking, 
did  not  commend  itself  to  us.  From  the  end  of  July 
to  the  end  of  September  we  feasted  on  plovers'  eggs 
at  breakfast.  In  appearance  and  taste  they  were 
precisely  like  our  lapwings'  eggs,  only  larger,  the  Argen- 
tine lapwing  being  a  bigger  bird  than  its  European 


200  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

cousin.  In  those  distant  days  the  birds  were  excessively 
abundant  all  over  the  pampas  where  sheep  were  pas- 
tured, for  at  that  time  there  were  few  to  shoot  wild 
birds  and  nobody  ever  thought  of  killing  a  lapwing 
for  the  table.  The  country  had  not  then  been  over- 
run by  bird-destroying  immigrants  from  Europe,  es- 
pecially by  Italians.  Outside  of  the  sheep  zone  in  the 
exclusively  cattle-raising  country,  where  the  rough 
pampas  grasses  and  herbage  had  not  been  eaten  down, 
the  plover  were  sparsely  distributed. 

I  remember  that  one  day,  when  I  was  thirteen,  I 
went  out  one  morning  after  breakfast  to  look  for 
plovers'  eggs,  just  at  the  beginning  of  the  laying  season 
when  all  the  eggs  one  found  were  practically  new-laid. 
My  plan  was  that  of  the  native  boys,  to  go  at  a  fast 
gallop  over  the  plain  and  mark  the  spot  far  ahead  where 
a  lapwing  was  seen  to  rise  and  fly  straight  away  to 
some  distance.  For  this  method  some  training  is 
necessary  to  success,  as  in  many  cases  more  birds  than 
one — sometimes  as  many  as  three  or  four — would  be 
seen  to  rise  at  various  points  and  distances,  and  one 
had  to  mark  and  keep  in  memory  the  exact  spots  to 
visit  them  successively  and  find  the  nests.  The  English 
method  of  going  out  and  quartering  the  ground  in 
search  of  a  nest  in  likely  places  where  the  birds  breed 
was  too  slow  for  us. 

The  nests  I  found  that  morning  contained  one  or 
two  and  sometimes  three  eggs — ^very  rarely  the  full 
clutch  of  four.  Before  midday  I  had  got  back  with  a 
bag  of  sixty-four  eggs;  and  that  was  the  largest  number 
I  ever  gathered  at  one  time. 

Our  dinner  consisted  of  meat  and  pumpkin,  boiled 


THE  DOVECOTE 


201 


or  baked,  maize  "in  the  milk''  in  its  season  and  sweet 
potatoes,  besides  the  other  common  vegetables  and 
salads.  Maize-meal  puddings  and  pumpkin  pies  and 
tarts  were  common  with  us,  but  the  sweet  we  loved 
best  was  a  peach-pie,  made  like  an  apple-pie  with  a 
crust,  and  these  came  in  about  the  middle  of  February 
and  lasted  until  April  or  even  May,  when  our  late 
variety,  which  we  called  ''winter  peach,"  ripened. 

My  mother  was  a  clever  and  thrifty  housekeeper, 
and  I  think  she  made  more  of  the  peach  than  any 
other  resident  in  the  country  who  possessed  an  orchard. 
Her  peach  preserves,  which  lasted  us  the  year  round, 
were  celebrated  in  our  neighbourhood.  Peach  pre- 
serves were  in  most  English  houses,  but  our  house  was 
alone  in  making  pickled  peaches:  I  think  this  was  an 
invention  of  her  own;  I  do  not  know  if  it  has  taken 
on,  but  we  always  had  pickled  peaches  on  the  table  and 
preferred  them  to  all  other  kinds,  and  so  did  every 
person  who  tasted  them. 

I  here  recall  an  amusing  incident  with  regard  to  our 
pickled  peaches,  and  will  relate  it  just  because  it  serves 
to  bring  in  yet  another  of  our  old  native  neighbours. 
I  never  thought  of  him  when  describing  the  others,  as 
he  was  not  so  near  us  and  we  saw  little  of  him  and  his 
people.  His  name  was  Bentura  Gutierres,  and  he 
called  himself  an  estanciero — a  landowner  and  head  of 
a  cattle  establishment;  but  there  was  very  little  land 
left  and  practically  no  cattle — only  a  few  cows,  a  few 
sheep,  a  few  horses.  His  estate  had  been  long  crum- 
bling away  and  there  was  hardly  anything  left;  but  he 
was  a  brave  spirit  and  had  a  genial,  breezy  manner,  and 
dressed  well  in  the  European  mode,  with  trousers  and 


202  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

coat  and  waistcoat — this  last  garment  being  of  satir^ 
and  a  very  bright  blue.  And  he  talked  incessantly  of 
his  possessions:  his  house,  his  trees,  his  animals,  his  wife 
and  daughters.  And  he  was  immensely  popular  in  the 
neighbourhood,  no  doubt  because  he  was  the  father  of 
four  rather  good-looking,  marriageable  girls;  and  as 
he  kept  open  house  his  kitchen  was  always  full  of 
visitors,  mostly  young  men,  who  sipped  mate  by  the 
hour,  and  made  themselves  agreeable  to  the  girls. 

One  of  Don  Ventura's  most  delightful  traits — that 
is,  to  us  young  people — was  his  loud  voice.  I  think 
it  was  a  convention  in  those  days  for  estancieros  or 
cattlemen  to  raise  their  voices  according  to  their  im- 
portance in  the  community.  When  several  gauchos 
are  galloping  over  the  plain,  chasing  horses,  hunting  or 
marking  cattle,  the  one  who  is  head  of  the  gang  shouts 
his  directions  at  the  top  of  his  voice.  Probably  in  this 
way  the  habit  of  shouting  at  all  times  by  landowners 
and  persons  in  authority  had  been  acquired.  And  so  it 
pleased  us  very  much  when  Don  Ventura  came  one 
evening  to  see  my  father  and  consented  to  sit  down  to 
partake  of  supper  with  us.  We  loved  to  listen  to  his 
shouted  conversation. 

My  parents  apologized  for  having  nothing  but  cold 
meats  to  put  before  him — cold  shoulder  of  mutton,  a 
bird,  and  pickles,  cold  pie  and  so  on.  True,  he  replied, 
cold  meat  is  never  or  rarely  eaten  by  man  on  the  plains. 
People  do  have  cold  meat  in  the  house,  but  that  as  a 
rule  is  where  there  are  children,  for  when  a  child  is 
hungry,  and  cries  for  food,  his  mother  gives  him  a 
bone  of  cold  meat,  just  as  in  other  countries  where 
bread  is  common  you  give  a  child  a  piece  of  bread. 


THE  DOVECOTE  203 


However,  he  would  try  cold  meat  for  once.  It  looked 
to  him  as  if  there  were  other  things  to  eat  on  the  table, 
"And  what  is  this?"  he  shouted,  pointing  dramatically 
at  a  dish  of  large,  very  green-looking  pickled  peaches. 
Peaches — peaches  in  winter !    This  is  strange  indeed ! 

It  was  explained  to  him  that  they  were  pickled 
peaches,  and  that  it  was  the  custom  of  the  house  to 
have  them  on  the  table  at  supper.  He  tried  one  with 
his  cold  mutton,  and  was  presently  assuring  my  parents 
that  never  in  his  life  had  he  partaken  of  anything  so 
good — so  tasty,  so  appetizing,  and  whether  or  not  it  was 
because  of  the  pickled  peaches,  or  some  quality  in  our 
mutton  which  made  it  unlike  all  other  mutton,  he  had 
never  enjoyed  a  meal  as  much.  What  he  wanted  to 
know  was  how  the  thing  was  done.  He  was  told  that 
large,  sound  fruit,  just  ripening,  must  be  selected  for 
pickling;  when  the  finger  dents  a  peach  it  is  too  ripe. 
The  selected  peaches  are  washed  and  dried  and  put 
into  a  cask,  then  boiling  vinegar,  with  a  handful  of 
cloves  is  poured  in  till  it  covers  the  fruit,  the  cask 
closed  and  left  for  a  couple  of  months,  by  which  time 
the  fruit  would  be  properly  pickled.  Two  or  three 
casks-full  were  prepared  in  this  way  each  season  and 
served  us  for  the  entire  year. 

It  was  a  revelation,  he  said,  and  lamented  that  he 
and  his  people  had  not  this  secret  before.  He,  too, 
had  a  peach  orchard,  and  when  the  fruit  ripened  his 
family,  assisted  by  all  their  neighbours,  feasted  from 
morning  till  night  on  peaches,  and  hardly  left  room  in 
their  stomachs  for  roast  meat  when  it  was  dinner-time. 
The  consequence  was  that  in  a  very  few  weeks — he 
could  almost  say  days — the  fruit  was  all  gone,  and  they 


204  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

had  to  say,  ''No  more  peaches  for  another  twelve 
months!''  All  that  would  now  be  changed.  He 
would  command  his  wife  and  daughters  to  pickle 
peaches — a  cask- full,  or  two  or  three  if  one  would  not 
be  enough.  He  would  provide  vinegar — many  gallons 
of  it,  and  cloves  by  the  handful.  And  when  they  had 
got  their  pickled  peaches  he  would  have  cold  mutton 
for  supper  every  day  all  the  year  round,  and  enjoy  his 
life  as  he  had  never  done  before! 

This  amused  us  very  much,  as  we  knew  that  poor 
Don  Ventura,  notwithstanding  his  loud  commanding 
voice,  had  little  or  no  authority  in  his  house;  that  it 
was  ruled  by  his  wife,  assisted  by  a  council  of  four 
marriageable  daughters,  whose  present  objects  in  life 
were  little  dances  and  other  amusements,  and  lovers 
with  courage  enough  to  marry  them  or  carry  them  off. 


CHAPTER  XV 


Serpent  and  Child 

My  pleasure  in  bird  life — Mammals  at  our  new  home — 
Snakes  and  how  children  are  taught  to  regard  them — 
A  colony  of  snakes  in  the  house — Their  hissing  confab- 
ulations— Finding  serpent  sloughs — A  serpent's  saviour 
— ^A  brief  history  of  our  EngHsh  neighbours,  the  Blakes. 

It  is  not  an  uncommon  thing,  I  fancy,  for  a  child  or 
boy  to  be  more  deeply  impressed  and  stirred  at  the 
sight  of  a  snake  than  of  any  other  creature.  This  at 
all  events  is  my  experience.  Birds  certainly  gave  me 
more  pleasure  than  other  animals,  and  this  too  is  no 
doubt  common  with  children,  and  I  take  the  reason  of 
it  to  be  not  only  because  birds  exceed  in  beauty,  but 
also  on  account  of  the  intensity  of  life  they  exhibit — a 
life  so  vivid,  so  brilliant,  as  to  make  that  of  other 
beings,  such  as  reptiles  and  mammals,  seem  a  rather 
poor  thing  by  comparison.  But  while  birds  were  more 
than  all  other  beings  to  me,  mammals  too  had  a  great 
attraction.  I  have  already  spoken  of  rats,  opossums, 
and  armadillos;  also  of  the  vizcacha,  the  big  burrowing 
rodent  that  made  his  villages  all  over  the  plain.  One 
of  my  early  experiences  is  of  the  tremendous  outcry 
these  animals  would  make  at  night  when  suddenly 
startled  by  a  very  loud  noise,  as  by  a  clap  of  thunder. 

205 


2o6  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

When  we  had  visitors  from  town,  especially  persons 
new  to  the  country  who  did  not  know  the  vizcacha,  they 
would  be  taken  out  after  supper,  a  little  distance  from 
the  house,  when  the  plain  was  all  dark  and  profoundly 
silent,  and  after  standing  still  for  a  few  minutes  to  give 
them  time  to  feel  the  silence,  a  gun  Vv^ould  be  dis- 
charged, and  after  two  or  three  seconds  the  report 
would  be  followed  by  an  extraordinary  hullabaloo,  a 
wild  outcry  of  hundreds  and  thousands  of  voices,  from 
all  over  the  plain  for  miles  round,  voices  that  seemed 
to  come  from  hundreds  of  different  species  of  animals, 
so  varied  they  were,  from  the  deepest  booming  sounds 
to  the  high  shrieks  and  squeals  of  shrill-voiced  birds. 
Our  visitors  used  to  be  filled  with  astonishment. 

Another  animal  that  impressed  us  deeply  and  pain- 
fully was  the  skunk.  They  were  fearless  little  beasts 
and  in  the  evening  would  come  quite  boldly  about  the 
house,  and  if  seen  and  attacked  by  a  dog,  they  would 
defend  themselves  with  the  awful-smelling  liquid  they 
discharge  at  an  adversary.  When  the  wind  brought  a 
whiff  of  it  into  the  house,  when  all  the  doors  and 
windows  stood  open,  it  would  create  a  panic,  and 
people  would  get  up  from  table  feeling  a  little  sea-sick, 
and  go  in  search  of  some  room  where  the  smell  was 
not.  Another  powerful-smelling  but  very  beautiful 
creature  was  the  common  deer.  I  began  to  know  it 
from  the  age  of  five,  when  we  went  to  our  new  home, 
and  where  we  children  were  sometimes  driven  with  our 
parents  to  visit  some  neighbours  several  miles  aw^ay. 
There  were  always  herds  of  deer  on  the  lands  where 
the  cardoon  thistle  flourished  most,  and  it  was  a  delight 
to  come  upon  them  and  to  see  their  yellow  figures 


SERPENT  AND  CHILD 


207 


standing  among  the  grey-green  cardoon  bushes,  gazing 
motionless  at  us,  then  turning  and  rushing  away  with 
a  whistHng  cry,  and  sending  out  gusts  of  their  powerful 
musky  smell,  which  the  wind  sometimes  brought  to 
our  nostrils. 

But  there  was  a  something  in  the  serpent  which  pro- 
duced a  quite  different  and  a  stronger  effect  on  the 
mind  than  bird  or  mammal  or  any  other  creature. 
The  sight  of  it  was  always  startling,  and  however  often 
seen  always  produced  a  mixed  sense  of  amazement  and 
fear.  The  feeling  was  no  doubt  acquired  from  our 
elders.  They  regarded  snakes  as  deadly  creatures,  and 
as  a  child  I  did  not  know  that  they  were  mostly  harm- 
less, that  it  was  just  as  senseless  to  kill  them  as  to  kill 
harmless  and  beautiful  birds.  I  was  told  that  when  I 
saw  a  snake  I  must  turn  and  run  for  my  life  until 
I  was  a  little  bigger,  and  then  on  seeing  a  snake  I  was 
to  get  a  long  stick  and  kill  it;  and  it  was  furthermore 
impressed  on  me  that  snakes  are  exceedingly  difficult 
to  kill,  that  many  persons  believe  that  a  snake  never 
really  dies  until  the  sun  sets,  therefore  when  I  killed  a 
snake,  in  order  to  make  it  powerless  to  do  any  harm 
between  the  time  of  killing  it  and  sunset,  it  was 
necessary  to  pound  it  to  a  pulp  with  the  aforesaid  long 
stick. 

With  such  teaching  it  was  not  strange  that  even  as  a 
small  boy  I  became  a  persecutor  of  snakes. 

Snakes  were  common  enough  about  us;  snakes  of 
seven  or  eight  different  kinds,  green  in  the  green 
grass,  and  yellow  and  dusky-mottled  in  dry  and  bar- 
ren places  and  in  withered  herbage,  so  that  it  was 
difficult  to  detect  them.    Sometimes  they  intruded  into 


2o8  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

the  dwelling-rooms,  and  at  all  seasons  a  nest  or  colony 
of  snakes  existed  in  the  thick  old  foundations  of  the 
house,  and  under  the  flooring.  In  winter  they  hiber- 
nated there,  tangled  together  in  a  cluster  no  doubt; 
and  in  summer  nights  when  they  were  at  home, 
coiled  at  their  ease  or  gliding  ghost-like  about  their 
subterranean  apartments,  I  would  lie  awake  and  listen 
to  them  by  the  hour.  For  although  it  may  be  news 
to  some  closet  ophiologists,  serpents  are  not  all  so 
mute  as  we  think  them.  At  all  events  this  kind,  the 
Philodryas  cBstivus — a  beautiful  and  harmless  colubrine 
snake,  tw^o  and  a  half  to  three  feet  long,  marked  all 
over  with  inky  black  on  a  vivid  green  ground — not 
only  emitted  a  sound  when  lying  undisturbed  in  his 
den,  but  several  individuals  would  hold  a  conversation 
together  which  seemed  endless,  for  I  generally  fell 
asleep  before  it  finished.  A  hissing  conversation  it  is 
true,  but  not  unmodulated  or  without  considerable 
variety  in  it;  a  long  sibilation  would  be  followed  by 
distinctly-heard  ticking  sounds,  as  of  a  husky-ticking 
clock,  and  after  ten  or  twenty  or  thirty  ticks  another 
hiss,  like  a  long  expiring  sigh,  sometimes  with  a  tremble 
in  it  as  of  a  dry  leaf  swiftly  vibrating  in  the  wind. 
No  sooner  would  one  cease  than  another  would  begin; 
and  so  it  would  go  on,  demand  and  response,  strophe 
and  antistrope;  and  at  intervals  several  voices  would 
unite  in  a  kind  of  low  mysterious  chorus,  death-watch 
and  flutter  and  hiss;  while  I,  lying  awake  in  my  bed, 
listened  and  trembled.  It  was  dark  in  the  room,  and 
to  my  excited  imagination  the  serpents  were  no  longer 
under  the  floor,  but  out,  gliding  hither  and  thither 
over  it,  with  uplifted  heads  in  a  kind  of  mystic  dance; 


SERPENT  AND  CHILD 


and  I  often  shivered  to  think  what  my  bare  feet  might 
touch  if  I  were  to  thrust  a  leg  out  and  let  it  hang 
down  over  the  bedside. 

'Tm  shut  in  a  dark  room  with  the  candle  blown 
out/'  pathetically  cried  old  Farmer  Fleming,  when  he 
heard  of  his  beautiful  daughter  Dahlia's  clandestine 
departure  to  a  distant  land  with  a  nameless  lover. 
'Tvt  heard  of  a  sort  of  fear  you  have  in  that  dilemma, 
lest  you  should  lay  your  fingers  on  edges  of  sharp 
knives,  and  if  I  think  a  step — if  I  go  thinking  a  step, 
and  feel  my  way,  I  do  cut  myself,  and  I  bleed,  I  do.'' 
Only  in  a  comparatively  snakeless  country  could  such 
fancies  be  born  and  such  metaphors  used — snakeless 
and  highly  civilized,  where  the  blades  of  Sheffield  are 
cheap  and  abundant.  In  ruder  lands,  where  ophidians 
abound,  as  in  India  and  South  America,  in  the  dark  one 
fears  the  cold  living  coil  and  deadly  sudden  fang. 

Serpents  were  fearful  things  to  me  at  that  period; 
but  whatsoever  is  terrible  and  dangerous,  or  so  reported, 
has  an  irresistible  attraction  for  the  mind,  whether  of 
^hild  or  man;  it  was  therefore  always  a  pleasure  to 
have  seen  a  snake  in  the  day's  rambles,  although  the 
sight  was  a  startling  one.  Also  in  the  warm  season  it 
was  a  keen  pleasure  to  find  the  cast  slough  of  the  feared 
and  subtle  creature.  Here  was  something  not  the 
serpent,  yet  so  much  more  than  a  mere  picture  of  it; 
a  dead  and  cast-off  part  of  it,  but  in  its  completeness, 
from  the  segmented  mask  with  the  bright  unseeing 
eyes,  to  the  fine  whip-like  tail  end,  so  like  the  serpent 
itself;  I  could  handle  it,  handle  the  serpent  as  it  were, 
yet  be  in  no  danger  from  venomous  tooth  or  stinging 
tongue.     True,  it  was  colourless,  but  silvery  bright, 


210  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

soft  as  satin  to  the  touch,  crinkling  when  handled  with 
a  sound  that  to  the  startled  fancy  recalled  the  danger- 
ous living  hiss  from  the  dry  rustling  grass!  I  would 
clutch  my  prize  with  a  fearful  joy,  as  if  I  had  picked 
up  a  strange  feather  dropped  in  passing  from  the  wing 
of  one  of  the  fallen  but  still  beautiful  angels.  And  it 
always  increased  my  satisfaction  when,  on  exhibiting 
my  treasure  at  home,  the  first  sight  of  it  caused  a 
visible  start  or  an  exclamation  of  alarm. 

When  my  courage  and  strength  were  sufficient  I 
naturally  began  to  take  an  active  part  in  the  persecution 
of  serpents;  for  was  not  I  also  of  the  seed  of  Eve? 
Nor  can  I  say  when  my  feelings  towards  our  bruised 
enemy  began  to  change;  but  an  incident  which  I 
witnessed  at  this  time,  when  I  was  about  eight,  had, 
I  think,  a  considerable  influence  on  me.  At  all  events 
it  caused  me  to  reflect  on  a  subject  which  had  not 
previously  seemed  one  for  reflection.  I  was  in  the 
orchard,  following  in  the  rear  of  a  party  of  grown-up 
persons,  mostly  visitors  to  the  house;  when  among  the 
foremost  there  were  sudden  screams,  gestures  of 
alarm,  and  a  precipitate  retreat:  a  snake  had  been 
discovered  lying  in  the  path  and  almost  trodden  upon. 
One  of  the  men,  the  first  to  find  a  stick  or  perhaps  the 
most  courageous,  rushed  to  the  front  and  was  about  to 
deal  a  killing  blow  when  his  arm  was  seized  by  one 
of  the  ladies  and  the  blow  arrested.  Then,  stooping 
quickly,  she  took  the  creature  up  in  her  hands,  and 
going  away  to  some  distance  from  the  others,  released 
it  in  the  long  green  grass,  green  in  colour  as  its  glitter- 
ing skin  and  as  cool  to  the  touch.  Long  ago  as  this 
happened  it  is  just  as  vivid  to  my  mind  as  if  it  had 


SERPENT  AND  CHILD  211 


happened  yesterday.  I  can  see  her  coming  back  to  us 
through  the  orchard  trees,  her  face  shining  with  joy 
because  she  had  rescued  the  reptile  from  imminent 
death,  her  return  greeted  with  loud  expressions  of 
horror  and  amazement,  which  she  only  answered  with 
a  little  laugh  and  the  question,  '*Why  should  you  kill 
it?''  But  why  was  she  glad,  so  innocently  glad  as  it 
seemed  to  me,  as  if  she  had  done  some  meritorious 
and  no  evil  thing?  My  young  mind  was  troubled  at 
the  question,  and  there  was  no  answer.  Nevertheless, 
I  think  that  this  incident  bore  fruit  later,  and  taught  me 
to  consider  whether  it  might  not  be  better  to  spare 
than  to  kill;  better  not  only  for  the  animal  spared, 
but  for  the  soul. 

And  the  woman  who  did  this  unusual  thing  and  in 
doing  it  unknowingly  dropped  a  minute  seed  into  a 
boy's  mind,  who  was  she?  Perhaps  it  would  be  as 
well  to  give  a  brief  account  of  her,  although  I  thought 
that  I  had  finished  with  the  subject  of  our  neighbours. 
She  and  her  husband,  a  man  named  Matthew  Blake, 
were  our  second  nearest  English  neighbours,  but  they 
lived  a  good  deal  further  than  the  Royds  and  were 
seldom  visited  by  us.  To  me  there  was  nothing 
interesting  in  them  and  their  surroundings,  as  they  had 
no  family  and  no  people  but  the  native  peons  about 
them,  and,  above  all,  no  plantation  where  birds  could  be 
seen.  They  were  typical  English  people  of  the  lower 
middle  class,  who  read  no  books  and  conversed,  with 
considerable  misuse  of  the  aspirate,  about  nothing  but 
their  own  and  their  neighbours'  afifairs.  Physically 
Mr.  Blake  was  a  very  big  man,  being  six  feet  three  in 
height  and  powerfully  built.    He  had  a  round  ruddy 


212  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

face,  clean-shaved  except  for  a  pair  of  side-whiskers, 
and  pale-blue  shallow  eyes.  He  was  invariably  dressed, 
in  black  cloth,  his  garments  being  home-made  and  too 
large  for  him,  the  baggy  trousers  thrust  into  his  long 
boots.  Mr.  Blake  was  nothing  to  us  but  a  huge,  serious, 
somewhat  silent  man  who  took  no  notice  of  small  boys, 
and  was  clumsy  and  awkward  and  spoke  very  bad  Span- 
ish. He  was  well  spoken  of  by  his  neighbours,  and  was 
regarded  as  a  highly  respectable  and  dignified  person, 
but  he  had  no  intimates  and  was  one  of  those  unfor- 
tunate persons,  not  rare  among  the  English,  who  appear 
to  stand  behind  a  high  wall  and,  whether  they  desire  it 
or  not,  have  no  power  to  approach  and  mix  with  their 
fellow-beings. 

I  think  he  was  about  forty-five  to  fifty  years  old 
when  I  was  eight  His  wife  looked  older  and  was  a 
short  ungraceful  woman  with  a  stoop,  wearing  a  sun- 
bonnet  and  sack  and  a  faded  gown  made  by  herself. 
Her  thin  hair  was  of  a  yellowish-grey  tint,  her  eyes 
pale  blue,  and  there  was  a  sunburnt  redness  on  her 
cheeks,  but  the  face  had  a  faded  and  weary  look.  But 
she  was  better  than  her  giant  husband  and  was  glad  to 
associate  with  her  fellows,  and  was  also  a  lover  of 
animals — horses,  dogs,  cats,  and  any  and  every  wild 
creature  that  came  in  her  way. 

The  Blakes  had  been  married  a  quarter  of  a  century 
or  longer  and  had  spent  at  least  twenty  years  of  their 
childless  solitary  life  in  a  mud-built  ranch,  sheep- 
farming  on  the  pampas,  and  had  slowly  accumulated  a 
small  fortune,  until  now  they  were  possessed  of  about 
a  square  league  of  land  with  25,000  or  30,000  sheep, 
and  had  built  themselves  a  big  ugly  brick  house  to 


SERPENT  AND  CHILD 


213 


live  in.  They  had  thus  secured  the  prize  for  which 
they  had  gone  so  many  thousands  of  miles  and  had 
toiled  for  so  many  years,  but  they  were  certainly  not 
happy.  Poor  Mr.  Blake,  cut  off  from  his  fellow- 
creatures  by  that  wall  that  stood  before  him,  had  found 
companionship  in  the  bottle,  and  was  seen  less  and 
less  of  by  his  neighbours;  and  when  his  wife  came  to 
us  to  spend  two  or  three  days  ''for  a  change,"  although 
her  home  was  only  a  couple  of  hours'  ride  away,  the 
reason  probably  was  that  her  husband  was  in  one  of 
his  bouts  and  had  made  the  place  intolerable  to  her. 
I  remember  that  she  always  came  to  us  with  a  sad, 
depressed  look  on  her  face,  but  after  a  few  hours  she 
would  recover  her  spirits  and  grow  quite  cheerful  and 
talkative.  And  of  an  evening  when  there  was  music 
she  would  sometimes  consent,  after  some  persuasion, 
to  give  the  company  a  song.  That  was  a  joy  to  us 
youngsters,  as  she  had  a  thin  cracked  voice  that  always 
at  the  high  notes  went  off  into  a  falsetto.  Her  favour- 
ite air  was  ''Home,  sweet  Home,"  and  her  rendering 
in  her  wailing  cracked  voice  was  as  great  a  feast  to 
us  as  the  strange  laugh  of  our  grotesque  neighbour 
Gandara. 

And  that  is  all  I  can  say  about  her.  But  now  when 
I  remember  that  episode  of  the  snake  in  the  orchard, 
she  looks  to  me  not  unbeautiful  in  memory,  and  her 
voice  in  the  choir  invisible  sounds  sweet  enough. 


CHAPTER  XVI 
A  Serpent  Mystery 

A  new  feeling  about  snakes — Common  snakes  of  the  country 
— barren  weedy  patch — Discovery  of  a  large  black 
snake — Watching  for  its  reappearance — Seen  going  to 
its  den — The  desire  to  see  it  again — vain  search — 
Watching  a  bat — The  black  serpent  reappears  at  my 
feet — Emotions  and  conjectures — Melanism — My  baby 
sister  and  a  strange  snake — ^The  mystery  solved. 

It  was  not  until  after  the  episode  related  in  the  last 
chapter  and  the  discovery  that  a  serpent  was  not  neces- 
sarily dangerous  to  human  beings,  therefore  a  creature 
to  be  destroyed  at  sight  and  pounded  to  a  pulp  lest  it 
should  survive  and  escape  before  sunset,  that  I  began 
to  appreciate  its  unique  beauty  and  singularity.  Then, 
somewhat  later,  I  met  with  an  adventure  which  pro- 
duced another  and  a  new  feeling  in  me,  that  sense  of 
something  supernatural  in  the  serpent  which  appears 
to  have  been  universal  among  peoples  in  a  primitive 
state  of  culture  and  still  survives  in  some  barbarous  or 
semi-barbarous  countries,  and  in  others,  like  Hindustan, 
which  have  inherited  an  ancient  civilization. 

The  snakes  I  was  familiar  with  as  a  boy  up  to  this 
time  were  all  of  comparatively  small  size,  the  largest 
being  the  snake-with-a-cross,   described   in   an  early 

2IA 


A  SERPENT  MYSTERY  215 

chapter.  The  biggest  specimen  I  have  ever  found  of 
this  ophidian  was  under  four  feet  in  length;  but  the 
body  is  thick,  as  in  all  the  pit  vipers.  Then,  there 
was  the  green-and-black  snake  described  in  the  last 
chapter,  an  inhabitant  of  the  house,  which  seldom  ex- 
ceeded three  feet;  and  another  of  the  same  genus,  the 
most  common  snake  in  the  country.  One  seldom  took 
a  walk  or  ride  on  the  plain  without  seeing  it.  It  was 
in  size  and  shape  like  our  common  grass-snake,  and 
was  formerly  classed  by  naturalists  in  the  same  genus, 
Coronella.  It  is  quite  beautiful,  the  pale  greenish- 
grey  body,  mottled  with  black,  being  decorated  with 
two  parallel  bright  red  lines  extending  from  the  neck 
to  the  tip  of  the  fine-pointed  tail.  Of  the  others  the 
most  interesting  was  a  still  smaller  snake,  brightly 
coloured,  the  belly  with  alternate  bands  of  crimson 
and  bright  blue.  This  snake  was  regarded  by  every 
one  as  exceedingly  venomous  and  most  dangerous  on 
account  of  its  irascible  temper  and  habit  of  coming  at 
you  and  hissing  loudly,  its  head  and  neck  raised,  and 
striking  at  your  legs.  But  this  was  all  swagger  on  the 
snake's  part :  it  was  not  venomous  at  all,  and  could  do 
no  more  harm  by  biting  than  a  young  dove  in  its  nest 
by  puffing  itself  up  and  striking  at  an  intrusive  hand 
with  its  soft  beak. 

Then  one  day  I  came  upon  a  snake  quite  unknown 
to  me:  I  had  never  heard  of  the  existence  of  such  a 
snake  in  our  parts,  and  I  imagine  its  appearance  would 
have  strongly  affected  any  one  in  any  land,  even  in 
those  abounding  in  big  snakes.  The  spot,  too,  in 
our  plantation,  where  I  found  it,  served  to  make  itg 
singular  appearance  more  impressive. 


2i6  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

There  existed  at  that  time  a  small  piece  of  waste 
ground  about  half  an  acre  in  extent,  where  there  were 
no  trees  and  where  nothing  planted  by  man  would 
grow.  It  was  at  the  far  end  of  the  plantation,  adjoin- 
ing the  thicket  of  fennel  and  the  big  red  willow  tree 
on  the  edge  of  the  moat  described  in  another  chapter. 
This  ground  had  been  ploughed  and  dug  up  again  and 
again,  and  planted  with  trees  and  shrubs  of  various 
kinds  which  were  supposed  to  grow  on  any  soil,  but 
they  had  always  languished  and  died,  and  no  wonder, 
since  the  soil  was  a  hard  white  clay  resembling  china 
clay.  But  although  trees  refused  to  grow  there  it  was 
always  clothed  in  a  vegetation  of  its  own;  all  the 
hardiest  weeds  were  there,  and  covered  the  entire 
barren  area  to  the  depth  of  a  man's  knees.  These 
weeds  had  thin  wiry  stalks  and  small  sickly  leaves  and 
flowers,  and  would  die  each  summer  long  before  their 
time.  This  barren  piece  of  ground  had  a  great  attrac- 
tion for  me  as  a  small  boy,  and  I  visited  it  daily  and 
would  roam  about  it  among  the  miserable  half-dead 
weeds  with  the  sun-baked  clay  showing  between  the 
brown  stalks,  as  if  it  delighted  me  as  much  as  the 
alfalfa  field,  blue  and  fragrant  in  its  flowering-time  and 
swarming  with  butterflies. 

One  hot  day  in  December  I  had  been  standing 
perfectly  still  for  a  few  minutes  among  the  dry  weeds 
when  a  slight  rustling  sound  came  from  near  my  feet, 
and  glancing  down  I  saw  the  head  and  neck  of  a  large 
black  serpent  moving  slowly  past  me.  In  a  moment 
or  two  the  flat  head  was  lost  to  sight  among  the  close- 
growing  weeds,  but  the  long  body  continued  moving 
slowly  by — so  slowly  that  it  hardly  appeared  to  move, 


A  SERPENT  MYSTERY  217 

and  as  the  creature  must  have  been  not  less  than  six 
feet  long,  and  probably  more,  it  took  a  very  long 
time,  while  I  stood  thrilled  with  terror,  not  daring  to 
make  the  slightest  movement,  gazing  down  upon  it. 
Although  so  long  it  was  not  a  thick  snake,  and  as  it 
moved  on  over  the  white  ground  it  had  the  appearance 
of  a  coal-black  current  flowing  past  me — a  current  not 
of  water  or  otlier  liquid  but  of  some  such  element  as 
quicksilver  moving  on  in  a  rope-like  stream.  At  last 
it  vanished,  and  turning  I  fled  from  the  ground,  think- 
ing that  never  again  would  I  venture  into  or  near  that 
frightfully  dangerous  spot  in  spite  of  its  fascination. 

Nevertheless  I  did  venture.  The  image  of  that  black 
mysterious  serpent  was  always  in  my  mind  from  the 
moment  of  waking  in  the  morning  until  I  fell  asleep 
at  night.  Yet  I  never  said  a  word  about  the  snake 
to  any  one :  it  was  my  secret,  and  I  knew  it  was  a 
dangerous  secret,  but  I  did  not  want  to  be  told  not 
to  visit  that  spot  again.  And  I  simply  could  not  keep 
away  from  it;  the  desire  to  look  again  at  that  strange 
being  was  too  strong.  I  began  to  visit  the  place  again, 
day  after  day,  and  would  hang  about  the  borders  of 
the  barren  weedy  ground  watching  and  listening,  and 
still  no  black  serpent  appeared.  Then  one  day  I  ven- 
tured, though  in  fear  and  trembling,  to  go  right  in 
among  the  weeds,  and  still  finding  nothing  began  to 
advance  step  by  step  until  I  was  right  in  the  middle  of 
the  weedy  ground  and  stood  there  a  long  time,  wait- 
ing and  watching.  All  I  wanted  was  just  to  see  it  once 
more,  and  I  had  made  up  my  mind  that  immediately 
on  its  appearance,  if  it  did  appear,  I  would  take  to  my 
heels.    It  was  when  standing  in  this  central  spot  that 


2i8  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

once  again  that  slight  rustling  sound,  like  that  of  a  few 
days  before,  reached  my  straining  sense  and  sent  an 
icy  chill  down  my  back.  And  there,  within  six  inches 
of  my  toes,  appeared  the  black  head  and  neck,  followed 
by  the  long,  seemingly  endless  body.  I  dared  not 
move,  since  to  have  attempted  flight  might  have  been 
fatal.  The  weeds  were  thinnest  here,  and  the  black 
head  and  slow-moving  black  coil  could  be  followed  by 
the  eye  for  a  little  distance.  About  a  yard  from  me 
there  was  a  hole  in  the  ground  about  the  circumference 
of  a  breakfast-cup  at  the  top,  and  into  this  hole  the 
serpent  put  his  head  and  slowly,  slowly  drew  himself 
in,  while  I  stood  waiting  until  the  whole  body  to  the 
tip  of  the  tail  had  vanished  and  all  danger  was  over. 

I  had  seen  my  wonderful  creature,  my  black  serpent 
unlike  any  serpent  in  the  land,  and  the  excitement 
following  the  first  thrill  of  terror  was  still  on  me,  but 
I  was  conscious  of  an  element  of  delight  in  it,  and  I 
would  not  now  resolve  not  to  visit  the  spot  again. 
Still,  I  was  in  fear,  and  kept  away  three  or  four  days. 
Thinking  about  the  snake  I  formed  the  conclusion  that 
the  hole  he  had  taken  refuge  in  was  his  den,  where 
he  lived,  that  he  was  often  out  roaming  about  in 
search  of  prey,  and  could  hear  footsteps  at  a  consider- 
able distance,  and  that  when  I  walked  about  at  that 
spot  my  footsteps  disturbed  him  and  caused  him  to 
go  straight  to  his  hole  to  hide  himself  from  a  possible 
danger.  It  struck  me  that  if  I  went  to  the  middle  of 
the  ground  and  stationed  myself  near  the  hole,  I  would 
be  sure  to  see  him.  It  would  indeed  be  difficult  to  see 
him  any  other  way,  since  one  could  never  know  in 
which  direction  he  had  gone  out  to  seek  for  food. 


A  SERPENT  MYSTERY 


219 


But  no,  it  was  too  dangerous :  the  serpent  might 
come  upon  me  unawares  and  would  probably  resent 
always  finding  a  boy  hanging  about  his  den.  Still,  I 
could  not  endure  to  think  I  had  seen  the  last  of  him, 
and  day  after  day  I  continued  to  haunt  the  spot,  and 
going  a  few  yards  into  the  little  weedy  wilderness 
would  stand  and  peer,  and  at  the  slighteot  rustling 
sound  of  an  insect  or  falling  leaf  would  experience  a 
thrill  of  fearful  joy,  and  still  the  black  majestical  crea- 
ture failed  to  appear. 

One  day  in  my  eagerness  and  impatience  I  pushed 
my  way  through  the  crowded  w^eeds  right  to  the 
middle  of  the  ground  and  gazed  with  a  mixed  delight 
and  fear  at  the  hole:  would  he  find  me  there,  as  on 
a  former  occasion?  Would  he  come?  I  held  my 
breath,  I  strained  my  sight  and  hearing  in  vain,  the 
hope  and  fear  of  his  appearance  gradually  died  out,  and 
I  left  the  place  bitterly  disappointed  and  walked  to  a 
spot  about  fifty  yards  away,  where  mulberry  trees  grew 
on  the  slope  of  the  mound  inside  the  moat. 

Looking  up  into  the  masses  of  big  clustering  leaves 
over  my  head  I  spied  a  bat  hanging  suspended  from  a 
twig.  The  bats,  I  must  explain,  in  that  part  of  the 
world,  that  illimitable  plain  where  there  were  no  caverns 
and  old  buildings  and  other  dark  places  to  hide  in  by 
day,  are  not  so  intolerant  of  the  bright  light  as  in  other 
lands.  They  do  not  come  forth  until  evening,  but  by 
day  they  are  content  to  hitch  themselves  to  the  twig 
of  a  tree  under  a  thick  cluster  of  leaves  and  rest  there 
until  it  is  dark. 

Gazing  up  at  this  bat  suspended  under  a  big  green 
leaf,  wrapped  in  his  black  and  buff-coloured  wings  as 


220  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

in  a  mantle,  I  forgot  my  disappointment,  forgot  the 
serpent,  and  was  so  entirely  taken  up  with  the  bat  that 
I  paid  no  attention  to  a  sensation  like  a  pressure  or  a 
dull  pain  on  the  instep  of  my  right  foot.  Then  the 
feeling  of  pressure  increased  and  was  very  curious  and 
was  as  if  I  had  a  heavy  object  like  a  crowbar  lying 
across  my  foot,  and  at  length  I  looked  down  at  my 
feet,  and  to  my  amazement  and  horror  spied  the  great 
black  snake  slowly  drawing  his  long  coil  across  my 
instep!  I  dared  not  move,  but  gazed  down  fascinated 
with  the  sight  of  that  glistening  black  cylindrical  body 
drawn  so  slowly  over  my  foot.  He  had  come  out  of 
the  moat,  which  was  riddled  at  the  sides  with  rat-holes, 
and  had  most  probably  been  there  hunting  for  rats 
when  my  wandering  footsteps  disturbed  him  and  sent 
him  home  to  his  den;  and  making  straight  for  it,  as 
his  way  was,  he  came  to  my  foot,  and  instead  of  going 
round  drew  himself  over  it.  After  the  first  spasm  of 
terror  I  knew  I  was  perfectly  safe,  that  he  would  not 
turn  upon  me  so  long  as  I  remained  quiescent,  and 
would  presently  be  gone  from  sight.  And  that  was 
my  last  sight  of  him ;  in  vain  I  watched  and  waited  for 
him  to  appear  on  many  subsequent  days:  but  that 
last  encounter  had  left  in  me  a  sense  of  a  mysterious 
being,  dangerous  on  occasion  as  when  attacked  or  in- 
sulted, and  able  in  some  cases  to  inflict  death  with  a 
sudden  blow,  but  harmless  and  even  friendly  or  bene- 
ficent towards  those  who  regarded  it  with  kindly  and 
reverent  feelings  in  place  of  hatred.  It  is  in  part  the 
feeling  of  the  Hindoo  with  regard  to  the  cobra  which 
inhabits  his  house  and  may  one  day  accidently  cause  his 
death,  but  is  not  to  be  persecuted. 


A  SERPENT  MYSTERY 


221 


Possibly  something  of  that  feeling  about  serpents 
has  survived  in  me;  but  in  time,  as  my  curiosity 
about  all  wild  creatures  grew,  as  I  looked  more  on 
them  with  the  naturalist's  eyes,  the  mystery  of  the 
large  black  snake  pressed  for  an  answer.  It  seemed 
impossible  to  believe  that  any  species  of  snake  of  large 
size  and  black  as  jet  or  anthracite  coal  in  colour  could 
exist  in  any  inhabited  country  without  being  known, 
yet  no  person  I  interrogated  on  the  subject  had  ever 
seen  or  heard  of  such  an  ophidian.  The  only  con- 
clusion appeared  to  be  that  this  snake  was  the  sole  one 
of  its  kind  in  the  land.  Eventually  I  heard  of  the 
phenomenon  of  melanism  in  animals,  less  rare  in  snakes 
perhaps  than  in  animals  of  other  classes,  and  I  was 
satisfied  that  the  problem  was  partly  solved.  My 
serpent  was  a  black  individual  of  a  species  of  some 
other  colour.  But  it  was  not  one  of  our  common 
species — not  one  of  those  I  knew.  It  was  not  a  thick 
blunt-bodied  serpent  like  our  venomous  pit-viper,  our 
largest  snake,  and  though  in  shape  it  conformed  to 
our  two  common  harmless  species  it  was  twice  as  big 
as  the  biggest  specimens  I  had  ever  seen  of  them. 
Then  I  recalled  that  two  years  before  my  discovery  of 
the  black  snake,  our  house  had  been  visited  by  a  large 
unknown  snake  which  measured  two  or  three  inches 
over  six  feet  and  was  similar  in  form  to  my  black 
serpent.  The  colour  of  this  strange  and  unwelcome 
visitor  was  a  pale  greenish  grey,  with  numerous  dull 
black  mottlings  and  small  spots.  The  story  of  its  ap- 
pearance is  perhaps  worth  giving. 

It  happened  that  I  had  a  baby  sister  who  could  just 
toddle  about  on  two  legs,  having  previously  gone  on 


222  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

all-fours.  One  midsummer  day  she  was  taken  up  and 
put  on  a  rug  in  the  shade  of  a  tree,  twenty-five  yards 
from  the  sitting-room  door,  and  left  alone  there  to 
amuse  herself  with  her  dolls  and  toys.  After  half  an 
hour  or  so  she  appeared  at  the  door  of  the  sitting-room 
where  her  mother  was  at  work,  and  standing  there 
with  wide-open  astonished  eyes  and  moving  her  hand 
and  arm  as  if  to  point  to  the  place  she  came  from,  she 
uttered  the  mysterious  word  ku-ku.  It  is  a  wonderful 
word  which  the  southern  South  American  mother 
teaches  her  child  from  the  moment  it  begins  to  toddle, 
and  is  useful  in  a  desert  and  sparsely  inhabited  country 
where  biting,  stinging,  and  other  injurious  creatures 
are  common.  For  babies  when  they  learn  to  crawl 
and  to  walk  are  eager  to  investigate  and  have  no 
natural  sense  of  danger.  Take  as  an  illustration  the 
case  of  the  gigantic  hairy  brown  spider,  which  is 
excessively  abundant  in  summer  and  has  the  habit  of 
wandering  about  as  if  always  seeking  something — 
''something  it  cannot  find,  it  knows  not  what'';  and 
in  these  wanderings  it  comes  in  at  the  open  door 
and  rambles  about  the  room.  At  the  sight  of  such  a 
creature  the  baby  is  snatched  up  with  the  cry  of  ku-ku 
and  the  intruder  slain  with  a  broom  or  other  weapon 
and  thrown  out.  Ku-ku  means  dangerous,  and  the 
terrified  gestures  and  the  expression  of  the  nurse  or 
mother  when  using  the  word  sink  into  the  infant 
mind,  and  when  that  sound  or  word  is  heard  there  is 
an  instant  response,  as  in  the  case  of  a  warning  note  or 
cry  uttered  by  a  parent  bird  which  causes  the  young 
to  fly  away  or  crouch  down  and  hide. 

The  child's  gestures  and  the  word  it  used  caused 


A  SERPENT  MYSTERY  223 

her  mother  to  run  to  the  spot  where  it  had  been  left 
in  the  shade,  and  to  her  horror  she  saw  there  a  huge 
serpent  coiled  up  in  the  middle  of  the  rug.  Her  cries 
brought  my  father  on  the  scene,  and  seizing  a  big 
stick  he  promptly  dispatched  the  snake. 

The  child,  said  everybody,  had  had  a  marvellous 
escape,  and  as  she  had  never  previously  seen  a  snake 
and  could  not  intuitively  know  it  as  dangerous,  or 
ku-ku,  it  was  conjectured  that  she  had  made  some 
gesture  or  attempted  to  push  the  snake  away  when  it 
came  on  to  the  rug,  and  that  it  had  reared  its  head 
and  struck  viciously  at  her. 

Recalling  this  incident  I  concluded  that  this  unknown 
serpent,  which  had  been  killed  because  it  wanted  to 
share  my  baby  sister's  rug,  and  my  black  serpent  were 
one  and  the  same  species — possibly  they  had  been 
mates — and  that  they  had  strayed  a  distance  away 
from  their  native  place  or  else  were  the  last  survivors 
of  a  colony  of  their  kind  in  our  plantation.  It  was 
not  until  twelve  or  fourteen  years  later  that  I  discovered 
that  it  was  even  as  I  had  conjectured.  At  a  distance 
of  about  forty  miles  from  my  home,  or  rather  from 
the  home  of  my  boyhood  where  I  no  longer  lived,  I 
found  a  snake  that  was  new  to  me,  the  Philodryas  scotti 
of  naturalists,  a  not  uncommon  Argentine  snake,  and 
recognized  it  as  the  same  species  as  the  one  found 
coiled  up  on  my  little  sister's  rug  and  presumably  as 
my  mysterious  black  serpent.  Some  of  the  specimens 
which  T  measured  exceeded  six  feet  in  length. 


CHAPTER  XVII 


A  Boy's  Animism 

The  animistic  faculty  and  its  survival  in  us — A  boy's  animism 
and  its  persistence — Impossibility  of  seeing  our  past 
exactly  as  it  was — Serge  AksakofF's  history  of  his  child- 
hood— The  child's  delight  in  nature  purely  physical — 
First  intimations  of  animism  in  the  child — How  it 
affected  me — Feeling  with  regard  to  flowers — ^A  flower 
and  my  mother — History  of  a  flower — Animism  with 
regard  to  trees — Locust-trees  by  moonlight — ^Animism 
and  nature-worship — ^Animistic  emotion  not  uncom- 
mon— Cowper  and  the  Yardley  oak — The  rehgionist's 
fear  of  nature — Pantheistic  Christianity — Survival  of 
nature-worship  in  England — The  feeling  for  nature — 
Wordsworth's  pantheism  and  animistic  emotion  in  poetry. 

These  serpent  memories,  particularly  the  enduring 
image  of  that  black  serpent  which  when  recalled  restores 
most  vividly  the  emotion  experienced  at  the  time,  serve 
to  remind  me  of  a  subject  not  yet  mentioned  in  my 
narrative :  this  is  animism,  or  that  sense  of  something 
in  nature  which  to  the  enlightened  or  civilized  man  is 
not  there,  and  in  the  civilized  man's  child,  if  it  be 
admitted  that  he  has  it  at  all,  is  but  a  faint  survival 
of  a  phase  of  the  primitive  mind.  And  by  animism  I 
do  not  mean  the  theory  of  a  soul  in  nature,  but  the 
tendency  or  impulse  or  instinct,  in  which  all  myth 
originates,  to  animate  all  things;  the  projection  of  our- 

224, 


A  BOY'S  ANIMISM  225 


selves  into  nature;  the  sense  and  apprehension  of  an 
intelligence  like  our  own  but  more  powerful  in  all  visible 
things.  It  persists  and  lives  in  many  of  us,  I  imagine, 
more  than  we  like  to  think,  or  more  than  we  know, 
especially  in  those  born  and  bred  amidst  rural  sur- 
roundings, where  there  are  hills  and  woods  and  rocks 
and  streams  and  waterfalls,  these  being  the  conditions 
which  are  most  favourable  to  it — the  scenes  which  have 
''inherited  associations"  for  us,  as  Herbert  Spencer  has 
said.  In  large  towns  and  all  populous  places,  where 
nature  has  been  tamed  until  it  appears  like  a  part  of 
man's  work,  almost  as  artificial  as  the  buildings  he 
inhabits,  it  withers  and  dies  so  early  in  life  that  its 
faint  intimations  are  soon  forgotten  and  we  come  to 
believe  that  we  have  never  experienced  them.  That 
such  a  feeling  can  survive  in  any  man,  or  that  there 
was  ever  a  time  since  his  infancy  when  he  could  have 
regarded  this  visible  world  as  anything  but  what  it 
actually  is — the  stage  to  which  he  has  been  summoned 
to  play  his  brief  but  important  part,  with  painted  blue 
and  green  scenery  for  background — becomes  incredible. 
Nevertheless,  I  know  that  in  me,  old  as  I  am,  this 
same  primitive  faculty  which  manifested  itself  in  my 
early  boyhood,  still  persists,  and  in  those  early  years 
was  so  powerful  that  I  am  almost  afraid  to  say  how 
deeply  I  was  moved  by  it. 

It  is  difficult,  impossible  I  am  told,  for  any  one  to 
recall  his  boyhood  exactly  as  it  was.  It  could  not  have 
been  what  it  seems  to  the  adult  mind,  since  we  cannot 
escape  from  what  we  are,  however  great  our  detach- 
ment may  be;  and  in  going  back  we  must  take  our 
present  selves  with  us:  the  mind  has  taken  a  different 


226  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

colour,  and  this  is  thrown  back  upon  our  past.  The 
poet  has  reversed  the  order  of  things  when  he  tells  us 
that  we  come  trailing  clouds  of  glory,  which  melt  away 
and  are  lost  as  we  proceed  on  our  journey.  The 
truth  is  that  unless  we  belong  to  the  order  of  those 
who  crystallize  or  lose  their  souls  on  their  passage,  the 
clouds  gather  about  us  as  we  proceed,  and  as  cloud- 
compellers  we  travel  on  to  the  very  end. 

Another  difficulty  in  the  way  of  those  who  write 
of  their  childhood  is  that  unconscious  artistry  will  steal 
or  sneak  in  to  erase  unseemly  lines  and  blots,  to  re- 
touch, and  colour,  and  shade  and  falsify  the  picture. 
The  poor,  miserable  autobiographer  naturally  desires  to 
make  his  personality  as  interesting  to  the  reader  as  it 
appears  to  himself.  I  feel  this  strongly  in  reading 
other  men's  recollections  of  their  early  years.  There 
are,  however,  a  few  notable  exceptions,  the  best  one  I 
know  being  Serge  Aksakoff's  History  of  His  Child- 
hood; and  in  his  case  the  picture  was  not  falsified, 
simply  because  the  temper,  and  tastes,  and  passions  of 
his  early  boyhood — his  intense  love  of  his  mother,  of 
nature,  of  all  wildness,  and  of  sport — endured  un- 
changed in  him  to  the  end  and  kept  him  a  boy  in 
heart,  able  after  long  years  to  revive  the  past  mentally, 
and  picture  it  in  its  true,  fresh,  original  colours. 

And  I  can  say  of  myself  with  regard  to  this  primi- 
tive faculty  and  emotion — this  sense  of  the  supernatural 
in  natural  things,  as  I  have  called  it — that  I  am  on  safe 
ground  for  the  same  reason;  the  feeling  has  never 
been  wholly  outlived.  And  I  will  add,  probably  to 
the  disgust  of  some  rigidly  orthodox  reader,  that  these 
are  childish  things  which  I  have  no  desire  to  put  away. 


A  BOY'S  ANIMISM  227 

The  first  intimations  of  the  feeling  are  beyond  recall ; 
I  only  know  that  my  memory  takes  me  back  to  a  time 
when  I  was  unconscious  of  any  such  element  in  nature, 
when  the  delight  I  experienced  in  all  natural  things 
was  purely  physical.  I  rejoiced  in  colours,  scents, 
sounds,  in  taste  and  touch:  the  blue  of  the  sky,  the 
verdure  of  earth,  the  sparkle  of  sunlight  on  water,  the 
taste  of  milk,  of  fruit,  of  honey,  the  smell  of  dry  or 
moist  soil,  of  wind  and  rain,  of  herbs  and  flowers;  the 
mere  feel  of  a  blade  of  grass  made  me  happy;  and 
there  were  certain  sounds  and  perfumes,  and  above  all 
certain  colours  in  flowers,  and  in  the  plumage  and 
eggs  of  birds,  such  as  the  purple  polished  shell  of  the 
tinamou's  egg,  which  intoxicated  me  with  delight. 
When,  riding  on  the  plain,  I  discovered  a  patch  of 
scarlet  verbenas  in  full  bloom,  the  creeping  plants 
covering  an  area  of  several  yards,  with  a  moist,  green 
sward  sprinkled  abundantly  with  the  shining  flower- 
bosses,  I  would  throw  myself  from  my  pony  with  a  cry 
of  joy  to  lie  on  the  turf  among  them  and  feast  my 
sight  on  their  brilliant  colour. 

It  was  not,  I  think,  till  my  eighth  year  that  I  began 
to  be  distinctly  conscious  of  something  more  than  this 
mere  childish  delight  in  nature.  It  may  have  been 
there  all  the  time  from  infancy — I  don't  know;  but 
when  I  began  to  know  it  consciously  it  was  as  if  some 
hand  had  surreptitiously  dropped  something  into  the 
honeyed  cup  which  gave  it  at  certain  times  a  new 
flavour.  It  gave  me  little  thrills,  often  purely  pleasur- 
able, at  other  times  startling,  and  there  were  occasions 
when  it  became  so  poignant  as  to  frighten  me.  The 
sight  of  a  magnificent  sunset  was  sometimes  almost 


228  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

more  than  I  could  endure  and  made  me  wish  to  hide 
myself  away.  But  when  the  feeling  was  roused  by 
the  sight  of  a  small  and  beautiful  or  singular  object, 
such  as  a  flower,  its  sole  efifect  was  to  intensify  the 
object's  loveliness.  There  were  many  flowers  which 
produced  this  effect  in  but  a  slight  degree,  and  as  I 
grew  up  and  the  animistic  sense  lost  its  intensity,  these 
too  lost  their  magic  and  were  almost  like  other  flowers 
which  had  never  had  it.  There  were  others  which 
never  lost  what  for  want  of  a  better  word  I  have  just 
called  their  magic,  and  of  these  I  will  give  an  account 
of  one. 

I  was  about  nine  years  old,  perhaps  a  month  or  two 
more,  when  during  one  of  my  rambles  on  horseback  I 
found  at  a  distance  of  two  or  three  miles  from  home,  a 
flower  that  was  new  to  me.  The  plant,  a  little  over 
a  foot  in  height,  was  growing  in  the  shelter  of  some 
large  cardoon  thistle,  or  wild  artichoke,  bushes.  It 
had  three  stalks  clothed  with  long,  narrow,  sharply- 
pointed  leaves,  which  were  downy,  soft  to  the  feel 
like  the  leaves  of  our  great  mullein,  and  pale  green  in 
colour.  All  three  stems  were  crowned  with  clusters 
of  flowers,  the  single  flower  a  little  larger  than  that  of 
the  red  valerian,  of  a  pale  red  hue  and  a  peculiar  shape, 
as  each  small  pointed  petal  had  a  fold  or  twist  at  the 
end.  Altogether  it  was  slightly  singular  in  appearance 
and  pretty,  though  not  to  be  compared  with  scores  of 
other  flowers  of  the  plains  for  beauty.  Nevertheless 
it  had  an  extraordinary  fascination  for  me,  and  from 
the  moment  of  its  discovery  it  became  one  of  my 
sacred  flowers.  From  that  time  onwards,  when  riding 
on  the  plain,  I  was  always  on  the  look-out  for  it,  and 


A  BOY^S  ANIMISM  229 

as  a  rule  I  found  three  or  four  plants  in  a  season,  but 
never  more  than  one  at  any  spot.  They  were  usually 
miles  apart 

On  first  discovering  it  I  took  a  spray  to  show  to 
my  mother,  and  was  strangely  disappointed  that  she 
admired  it  merely  because  it  was  a  pretty  flower,  seen 
for  the  first  time.  I  had  actually  hoped  to  hear  from 
her  some  word  which  would  have  revealed  to  me  why 
I  thought  so  much  of  it:  now  it  appeared  as  if  it  was 
no  more  to  her  than  any  other  pretty  flower  and  even 
less  than  some  she  was  peculiarly  fond  of,  such  as  the 
fragrant  little  lily  called  Virgin's  Tears,  the  scented 
pure  white  and  the  rose-coloured  verbenas,  and  several 
others.  Strange  that  she  who  alone  seemed  always  to 
know  what  was  in  my  mind  and  who  loved  all  beautiful 
things,  especially  flowers,  should  have  failed  to  see 
what  I  had  found  in  it! 

Years  later,  when  she  had  left  us  and  when  I  had 
grown  almost  to  manhood  and  we  were  living  in 
another  place,  I  found  that  we  had  as  neighbour  a 
Belgian  gentleman  who  was  a  botanist.  I  could  not 
find  a  specimen  of  my  plant  to  show  him,  but  gave 
him  a  minute  description  of  it  as  an  annual,  with  very 
large,  tough,  permanent  roots,  also  that  it  exuded  a 
thick  milky  juice  when  the  stem  was  broken,  and 
produced  its  yellow  seeds  in  a  long,  cylindrical,  sharply- 
pointed  pod  full  of  bright  silvery  down,  and  I  gave 
him  sketches  of  flower  and  leaf.  He  succeeded  in 
finding  it  in  his  books:  the  -species  had  been  known 
upwards  of  thirty  years,  and  the  discoverer,  who 
happened  to  be  an  Englishman,  had  sent  seed  and 
roots  to  the  Botanical  Societies  abroad  he  corresponded 


230  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

with;  the  species  had  been  named  after  him,  and  it 
was  to  be  found  now  growing  in  some  of  the  Botanical 
Gardens  of  Europe. 

All  this  information  was  not  enough  to  satisfy  me; 
there  was  nothing  about  the  man  in  his  books.  So  I 
went  to  my  father  to  ask  him  if  he  had  ever  known  or 
heard  of  an  Englishman  of  that  name  in  the  country. 
Yes,  he  said,  he  had  known  him  well;  he  was  a 
merchant  in  Buenos  Ayres,  a  nice  gentle-mannered 
man,  a  bachelor  and  something  of  a  recluse  in  his 
private  house,  where  he  lived  alone  and  spent  all 
his  week-ends  and  holidays  roaming  about  the  plains 
with  his  vasculum  in  search  of  rare  plants.  He  had 
been  long  dead — oh,  quite  twenty  or  twenty-five 
years. 

I  was  sorry  that  he  was  dead,  and  was  haunted  with 
a  desire  to  find  out  his  resting-place  so  as  to  plant  the 
flower  that  bore  his  name  on  his  grave.  He,  surely, 
when  he  discovered  it,  must  have  had  that  feeling 
which  I  had  experienced  when  I  first  beheld  it  and 
could  never  describe.  And  perhaps  the  presence  of 
those  deep  ever-living  roots  near  his  bones,  and  of  the 
flower  in  the  sunshine  above  him,  would  bring  him  a 
beautiful  memory  in  a  dream,  if  ever  a  dream  visited 
him,  in  his  long  unawakening  sleep. 

No  doubt  in  cases  of  this  kind,  when  a  first  im- 
pression and  the  emotion  accompanying  it  endures 
through  life,  the  feeling  changes  somewhat  with  time; 
imagination  has  worked  on  it  and  has  had  its  effect; 
nevertheless  the  endurance  of  the  image  and  emotion 
serves  to  show  how  powerful  the  mind  was  moved  in 
the  first  instance. 


A  BOY'S  ANIMISM  231 

I  have  related  this  case  because  there  were  interesting 
circumstances  connected  with  it;  but  there  were  other 
flowers  which  produced  a  similar  feeling,  which,  when 
recalled,  bring  back  the  original  emotion;  and  I  would 
gladly  travel  many  miles  any  day  to  look  again  at  any 
one  of  them.  The  feeling,  however,  was  evoked  more 
powerfully  by  trees  than  by  even  the  most  supernatural 
of  my  flowers;  it  varied  in  power  according  to  time 
and  place  and  the  appearance  of  the  tree  or  trees,  and 
always  affected  me  most  on  moonlight  nights.  Fre- 
quently, after  I  had  fiirst  begun  to  experience  it  con- 
sciously, I  would  go  out  of  my  way  to  meet  it,  and 
I  used  to  steal  out  of  the  house  alone  when  the  moon 
was  at  its  full  to  stand,  silent  and  motionless,  near 
some  group  of  large  trees,  gazing  at  the  dusky  green 
foliage  silvered  by  the  beams;  and  at  such  times  the 
sense  of  mystery  would  grow  until  a  sensation  of 
delight  would  change  to  fear,  and  the  fear  increase 
until  it  was  no  longer  to  be  borne,  and  I  would  hastily 
escape  to  recover  the  sense  of  reality  and  safety  in- 
doors, where  there  was  light  and  company.  Yet  on  the 
very  next  night  I  would  steal  out  again  and  go  to  the 
spot  where  the  effect  was  strongest,  which  was  usually 
among  the  large  locust  or  white  acacia  trees,  which  gave 
the  name  of  Las  Acacias  to  our  place.  The  loose 
feathery  foliage  on  moonlight  nights  had  a  peculiar 
hoary  aspect  that  made  this  tree  seem  more  intensely 
alive  than  others,  more  conscious  of  my  presence  and 
watchful  of  me. 

I  never  spoke  of  these  feelings  to  others,  not  even 
to  my  mother,  notwithstanding  that  she  was  always  in 
perfect  sympathy  with  me  with  regard  to  my  love  of 


232  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

nature.  The  reason  of  my  silence  was,  I  think,  my 
powerlessness  to  convey  in  words  what  I  felt;  but  I 
imagine  it  would  be  correct  to  describe  the  sensation 
experienced  on  those  moonlight  nig^^ts  among  the  trees 
as  similar  to  the  feeling  a  person  would  have  if  visited 
by  a  supernatural  being,  if  he  was  perfectly  convinced 
that  it  was  there  in  his  presence,  albeit  silent  and 
unseen,  intently  regarding  him,  and  divining  every 
thought  in  his  mind.  He  would  be  thrilled  to  the 
marrow,  but  not  terrified  if  he  knew  that  it  would 
take  no  visible  shape  nor  speak  to  him  out  of  the 
silence. 

This  faculty  or  instinct  of  the  dawning  mind  is  or 
has  always  seemed  to  me  essentially  religious  in  char- 
acter; undoubtedly  it  is  the  root  of  all  nature-worship, 
from  fetishism  to  the  highest  pantheistic  develop- 
ment. It  was  more  to  me  in  those  early  days  than 
all  the  religious  teaching  I  received  from  my  mother. 
Whatever  she  told  me  about  our  relations  with  the 
Supreme  Being  I  believed  implicitly,  just  as  I  be- 
lieved everything  else  she  told  me,  and  as  I  believed 
that  two  and  two  make  four  and  that  the  world  is 
round  in  spite  of  its  flat  appearance;  also  that  it  is 
travelling  through  space  and  revolving  round  the  sun 
instead  of  standing  still,  with  the  sun  going  round  it, 
as  one  would  imagine.  But  apart  from  the  fact  that 
the  powers  above  would  save  me  in  the  end  from 
extinction,  which  was  a  great  consolation,  these  teach- 
ings did  not  touch  my  heart  as  it  was  touched  and 
thrilled  by  something  nearer,  more  intimate,  in  nature, 
not  only  in  moonlit  trees  or  in  a  flower  or  serpent,  but, 
in  certain  exquisite  moments  and  moods  and  in  certain 


A  BOY'S  ANIMISM  233 

aspects  of  nature,  in  ''every  grass"  and  in  all  things, 
animate  and  inanimate. 

It  is  not  my  wish  to  create  the  impression  that  I  am 
a  peculiar  person  in  this  matter;  on  the  contrary,  it  is 
my  belief  that  the  animistic  instinct,  if  a  mental  faculty 
can  be  so  called,  exists  and  persists  in  many  persons, 
and  that  I  differ  from  others  only  in  looking  steadily 
at  it  and  taking  it  for  what  it  is,  also  in  exhibiting  it  to 
the  reader  naked  and  without  a  fig-leaf  expressed,  to 
use  a  Baconian  phrase.  When  the  religious  Cowper 
confesses  in  the  opening  lines  of  his  address  to  the 
famous  Yardley  oak,  that  the  sense  of  awe  and  rever- 
ence it  inspired  in  him  would  have  made  him  bow  him- 
self down  and  worship  it  but  for  the  happy  fact  that  his 
mind  was  illumined  with  the  knowledge  of  the  truth, 
he  is  but  saying  what  many  feel  without  in  most  cases 
recognizing  the  emotion  for  what  it  is — the  sense  of 
the  supernatural  in  nature.  And  if  they  have  grown 
up,  as  was  the  case  with  Cowper,  with  the  image  of  an 
implacable  anthropomorphic  deity  in  their  minds,  a 
being  who  is  ever  jealously  watching  them  to  note 
which  way  their  wandering  thoughts  are  tending,  they 
rigorously  repress  the  instinctive  feeling  as  a  temptation 
of  the  evil  one,  or  as  a  lawless  thought  born  of  their 
own  inherent  sinfulness.  Nevertheless  it  is  not  un- 
common to  meet  with  instances  of  persons  who  appear 
able  to  reconcile  their  faith  in  revealed  religion  with 
their  animistic  emotion.  I  will  give  an  instance.  One 
of  the  most  treasured  memories  of  an  old  lady  friend 
of  mine,  recently  deceased,  was  of  her  visits,  some 
sixty  years  or  more  ago,  to  a  great  country-house 
where  she  met  many  of  the  distinguished  people  of 


234  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

that  time,  and  of  her  host,  who  was  then  old,  the  head 
of  an  ancient  and  distinguished  family,  and  of  his 
reverential  feeling  for  his  trees.  His  greatest  pleasure 
was  to  sit  out  of  doors  of  an  evening  in  sight  of  the 
grand  old  trees  in  his  park,  and  before  going  in  he 
would  walk  round  to  visit  them,  one  by  one,  and 
resting  his  hand  on  the  bark  he  would  whisper  a  good- 
night. He  was  convinced,  he  confided  to  his  young 
guest,  who  often  accompanied  him  in  these  evening 
walks,  that  they  had  intelligent  souls  and  knew  and 
encouraged  his  devotion. 

There  is  nothing  surprising  to  me  in  this;  it  is  told 
here  only  because  the  one  who  cherished  this  feeling 
and  belief  was  an  orthodox  Christian,  a  profoundly 
religious  person;  also  because  my  informant  herself, 
who  was  also  deeply  religious,  loved  the  memory  of 
this  old  friend  of  her  early  life  mainly  because  of  his 
feeling  for  trees,  which  she  too  cherished,  believing,  as 
she  often  told  me,  that  trees  and  all  living  an^  growing 
things  have  souls.  What  has  surprised  me  is  that  a 
form  of  tree-worship  is  still  found  existing  among  a 
few  of  the  inhabitants  in  some  of  the  small  rustic  vil- 
lages in  out-of -the- world  districts  in  England.  Not  such 
survivals  as  the  apple  tree  folk-songs  and  ceremonies  of 
the  west,  which  have  long  become  meaningless,  but 
something  living,  which  has  a  meaning  for  the  mind,  a 
survival  such  as  our  anthropologists  go  to  the  end  of 
the  earth  to  seek  among  barbarous  and  savage  tribes. 

The  animism  which  persists  in  the  adult  in  these 
scientific  times  has  been  so  much  acted  on  and  changed 
by  dry  light  that  it  is  scarcely  recognizable  in  what  is 
somewhat  loosely  or  vaguely  called  a  ''feeling  for 


A  BOY'S  ANIMISM  235 

nature'' :  it  has  become  intertwined  with  the  aesthetic 
feeling  and  may  be  traced  in  a  good  deal  of  our  poetic 
literature,  particularly  from  the  time  of  the  first  ap- 
pearance of  Lyrical  Ballads,  which  put  an  end  to 
the  eighteenth-century  poetic  convention  and  made  the 
poet  free  to  express  what  he  really  felt.  But  the 
feeling,  whether  expressed  or  not,  was  always  there. 
Before  the  classic  period  we  find  in  Traherne  a  poetry 
which  was  distinctly  animistic,  with  Christianity  grafted 
on  it  Wordsworth's  pantheism  is  a  subtilized  ani- 
mism, but  there  are  moments  when  his  feeling  is  like 
that  of  the  child  or  savage  when  he  is  convinced  that 
the  flower  enjoys  the  air  it  breathes. 

I  must  apologize  to  the  reader  for  having  gone 
beyond  my  last,  since  I  am  not  a  student  of  literature, 
nor  catholic  in  my  literary  tastes,  and  on  such  subjects 
can  only  say  just  what  I  feel.  And  this  is,  that  the 
survival  of  the  sense  of  mystery,  or  of  the  supernatural, 
in  nature,  is  to  me  in  our  poetic  literature  like  that 
ingredient  of  a  salad  which  "animates  the  whole" ; 
that  the  absence  of  that  emotion  has  made  a  great 
portion  of  the  eighteenth  century  poetic  literature 
almost  intolerable  to  me,  so  that  I  wish  the  little  big 
man  who  dominated  his  age  (and  till  a  few  months  ago 
still  had  in  Mr.  Courthope  one  follower  among  us) 
had  emigrated  west  when  still  young,  leaving  Windsor 
Forest  as  his  only  monument  and  sole  and  sufficient 
title  to  immortality. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 


The  New  Schoolmaster 

Mr.  Trigg  recalled — His  successor — Father  O'Keefe — His 
mild  rule  and  love  of  angling — My  brother  is  assisted 
in  his  studies  by  the  priest — Happy  fishing  afternoons 
— The  priest  leaves  us — How  he  had  been  working  out  his 
own  salvation — We  run  wild  once  more — My  brother's 
plan  for  a  journal  to  be  called  The  Tin  Box — Our 
imperious  editor's  exactions — My  little  brother  revolts 
— The  Tin  Box  smashed  up — The  loss  it  was  to  me. 

The  account  of  our  schooling  days  under  Mr.  Trigg 
was  given  so  far  back  in  this  history  that  the  reader 
will  have  little  recollection  of  it.  Mr.  Trigg  was  in  a 
small  way  a  sort  of  Jekyll  and  Hyde,  all  pleasantness 
in  one  of  his  states  and  all  black  looks  and  truculence 
in  the  other;  so  that  out  of  doors  and  at  table  we 
children  would  say  to  ourselves  in  astonishment,  "Is 
this  our  schoolmaster?"  but  when  in  school  we  would 
ask,  'Ts  this  Mr.  Trigg?''  But,  as  I  have  related,  he 
had  been  forbidden  to  inflict  corporal  punishment  on 
us,  and  was  finally  got  rid  of  because  in  one  of  his 
demoniacal  moods  he  thrashed  us  brutally  with  his 
horsewhip.  When  this  occurred  we,  to  our  regret, 
were  not  permitted  to  go  back  to  our  aboriginal  con- 
dition of  young  barbarians:  some  restraint,  some 
teaching  was  still  imposed  upon  us  by  our  mother, 

236 


THE  NEW  SCHOOLMASTER  237 

who  took,  or  rather  tried  to  take,  this  additional  bur- 
den on  herself.  Accordingly,  we  had  to  meet  with  our 
lesson-books  and  spend  three  or  four  hours  every 
morning  with  her,  or  in  the  schoolroom  without  her, 
for  she  was  constantly  being  called  away,  and  when 
present  a  portion  of  the  time  was  spent  in  a  little  talk 
which  was  not  concerned  with  our  lessons.  For  we 
moved  and  breathed  and  had  our  being  in  a  strange 
moral  atmosphere,  where  lawless  acts  were  common 
and  evil  and  good  were  scarcely  distinguishable,  and 
all  this  made  her  more  anxious  about  our  spiritual  than 
our  mental  needs. 

My  two  elder  brothers  did  not  attend,  as  they  had 
long  discovered  that  their  only  safe  plan  was  to  be 
their  own  schoolmasters,  and  it  was  even  more  than  she 
could  manage  very  well  to  keep  the  four  smaller  ones 
to  their  tasks.  She  sympathized  too  much  with  our 
impatience  at  confinement  when  sun  and  wind  and  the 
cries  of  wild  birds  called  insistently  to  us  to  come  out 
and  be  alive  and  enjoy  ourselves  in  our  own  way. 

At  this  stage  a  successor  to  Mr.  Trigg,  a  real  school- 
master, was  unexpectedly  found  for  us  in  the  person  of 
Father  O'Keefe,  an  Irish  priest  without  a  cure  and  with 
nothing  to  do.  Some  friends  of  my  father,  on  one  of 
his  periodical  visits  to  Buenos  Ayres,  mentioned  this 
person  to  him — this  priest  who  in  his  wanderings  about 
the  world  had  drifted  hither  and  was  anxious  to  find 
some  place  to  stay  at  out  on  the  plains  while  waiting 
for  something  to  turn  up.  As  he  was  without  means 
he  said  he  would  be  glad  of  the  position  of  school- 
master in  the  house  for  a  time,  that  it  would  exactly 
suit  him. 


238  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

Father  O'Keefe,  who  now  appeared  on  the  scene, 
was  very  unlike  Mr.  Trigg;  he  was  a  very  big  man  in 
black  but  rusty  clerical  garments.  He  also  had  an 
extraordinarily  big  head  and  face,  all  of  a  dull,  reddish 
colour,  usually  covered  with  a  three  or  four  days' 
growth  of  grizzly  hair.  Although  his  large  face  was 
unmistakably,  intensely  Irish,  it  was  not  the  gorilla- 
like countenance  so  common  in  the  Irish  peasant-priest 
— the  priest  one  sees  every  day  in  the  streets  of 
Dublin.  He  was,  perhaps,  of  a  better  class,  as  his 
features  were  all  good.  A  heavy  man  as  well  as  a  big 
one,  he  was  not  so  amusing  and  so  fluent  a  talker  out 
of  school  as  his  predecessor,  nor,  as  we  were  delighted 
to  discover,  so  exacting  and  tyrannical  in  school.  On 
the  contrary,  in  and  out  of  school  he  was  always  the 
same,  mild  and  placid  in  temper,  with  a  gentle  sort  of 
humour,  and  he  was  also  very  absent-minded.  He 
would  forget  all  about  school  hours,  roam  about  the 
gardens  and  plantations,  get  into  long  conversations 
with  the  workmen,  and  eventually,  when  he  found  that 
he  was  somewhat  too  casual  to  please  his  employer,  he 
enjoined  us  to  ''look  him  up''  and  let  him  know  when 
it  was  school-time.  Looking  him  up  usually  took  a 
good  deal  of  time.  His  teaching  was  not  very  effective. 
He  could  not  be  severe  nor  even  passably  strict,  and 
never  punished  us  in  any  way.  When  lessons  were 
not  learned  he  would  sympathize  with  and  comfort  us 
by  saying  we  had  done  our  best  and  more  could  not  be 
expected.  He  was  also  glad  of  any  excuse  to  let  us 
off  for  half-a-day.  We  found  out  that  he  was  exceed- 
ingly fond  of  fishing — that  with  a  rod  and  line  in  his 
hand  he  would  spend  hours  of  perfect  happiness,  even 


THE  NEW  SCHOOLMASTER  239 


without  a  bite  to  cheer  him,  and  on  any  fine  day  that 
called  us  to  the  plain  we  would  tell  him  that  it  was  a 
perfect  day  for  fishing,  and  ask  him  to  let  us  ofif  for 
the  afternoon.  At  dinner  time  he  would  broach  the 
subject  and  say  the  children  had  been  very  hard  at 
their  studies  all  the  morning,  and  that  it  would  be  a 
mistake  to  force  their  young  minds  too  much,  that  all 
work  and  no  play  makes  Jack  a  dull  boy,  and  so  on 
and  so  forth,  and  that  he  considered  it  would  be  best 
for  them,  instead  of  going  back  to  more  lessons  in  the 
afternoon,  to  go  for  a  ride.  He  always  gained  his 
point,  and  dinner  over  we  would  rush  out  to  catch  and 
saddle  our  horses,  and  one  for  Father  O'Keefe. 

The  younger  of  our  two  elder  brothers,  the  sportsman 
and  fighter,  and  our  leader  and  master  in  all  our  outdoor 
pastimes  and  peregrinations,  had  taken  to  the  study  of 
mathematics  with  tremendous  enthusiasm,  the  same 
temper  which  he  displayed  in  every  subject  and  exercise 
that  engaged  him — fencing,  boxing,  shooting,  hunting, 
and  so  on;  and  on  Father  O'Keefe's  engagement  he 
was  anxious  to  know  if  the  new  master  would  be  any 
use  to  him.  The  priest  had  sent  a  most  satisfactory 
reply;  he  would  be  delighted  to  assist  the  young 
gentleman  with  his  mathematics,  and  to  help  him  over 
all  his  difficulties;  it  was  accordingly  arranged  that  my 
brother  was  to  have  an  early  hour  each  morning  with 
the  master  before  school  hours,  and  an  hour  or  two  in 
the  evening.  Very  soon  it  began  to  appear  that  the 
studies  were  not  progressing  smoothly;  the  priest 
would  come  forth  as  usual  with  a  smiling,  placid 
countenance,  my  brother  with  a  black  scowl  on  his  face, 
and  gaining  his  room,  he  would  hurl  his  books  down 


240  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

and  protest  in  violent  language  that  the  O'Keefe  was  a 
perfect  fraud,  that  he  knew  as  much  of  the  infinitesimal 
calculus  as  a  gaucho  on  horseback  or  a  wild  Indian. 
Then,  beginning  to  see  it  in  a  humorous  light,  he  would 
shout  with  laughter  at  the  priest's  pretentions  to  know 
anything,  and  would  say  he  was  only  fit  to  teach  babies 
just  out  of  the  cradle  to  say  their  ABC.  He  only 
wished  the  priest  had  also  pretended  to  some  acquaint- 
ance with  the  manly  art,  so  that  they  could  have  a  few 
bouts  with  the  gloves  on,  as  it  would  have  been  a 
great  pleasure  to  bruise  that  big  humbugging  face 
black  and  blue. 

The  mathematical  lessons  soon  ceased  altogether,  but 
whenever  an  afternoon  outing  was  arranged  my  brother 
would  throw  aside  his  books  to  join  us  and  take  the 
lead.  The  ride  to  the  river,  he  would  say,  would  give 
us  the  opportunity  for  a  little  cavalry  training  and 
lance-throwing  exercise.  In  the  cane-brake  he  would 
cut  long,  straight  canes  for  lances,  which  at  the  fishing- 
ground  would  be  cut  down  to  a  proper  length  for  rods. 
Then,  mounting,  we  would  set  of¥,  O'Keefe  ahead, 
absorbed  as  usual  in  his  own  thoughts,  while  we  at  a 
distance  of  a  hundred  yards  or  so  would  form  in  line 
and  go  through  our  evolutions,  chasing  the  flying 
enemy,  O'Keef e ;  and  at  intervals  our  commander  would 
give  the  order  to  charge,  whereupon  we  would  dash 
forward  with  a  shout,  and  when  about  forty  yards 
from  him  we  would  all  hurl  our  lances  so  as  to  make 
them  fall  just  at  the  feet  of  his  horse.  In  this  way 
we  would  charge  him  a  dozen  or  twenty  times  before 
getting  to  our  destination,  but  never  once  would  he 
turn  his  head  or  have  any  inkling  of  our  carryings-on 


THE  NEW  SCHOOLMASTER  241 


in  the  rear,  even  when  his  horse  lashed  out  viciously 
with  his  hind  legs  at  the  lances  when  they  fell  too  near 
his  feet. 

We  enjoyed  the  advantage  of  the  O'Keefe  regime 
for  about  a  year,  then  one  day,  in  his  usual  casual 
manner,  without  a  hint  as  to  how  his  private  affairs 
were  going,  he  said  that  he  had  to  go  somewhere  to  see 
some  one  about  something,  and  we  saw  him  no  more. 
However,  news  of  his  movements  and  a  good  deal  of 
information  about  him  reached  us  incidentally,  from  all 
which  it  appeared  that  during  his  time  with  us,  and  for 
some  months  previously.  Father  O'Keefe  had  been 
working  out  his  own  salvation  in  a  quiet  way  in  accord- 
ance with  a  rather  elaborate  plan  which  he  had  devised. 
Before  he  became  our  teacher  he  had  lived  in  some 
priestly  establishment  in  the  capital,  and  had  been  a 
hanger-on  at  the  Bishop's  palace,  waiting  for  a  benefice 
or  for  some  office,  and  at  length,  tired  of  waiting  in 
vain,  he  had  quietly  withdrawn  himself  from  this 
society  and  had  got  into  communication  with  one  of 
the  Protestant  clergymen  of  the  town.  He  intimated 
or  insinuated  that  he  had  long  been  troubled  with 
certain  scruples,  that  his  conscience  demanded  a  little 
more  liberty  than  his  church  would  allow  its  followers, 
and  this  had  caused  him  to  cast  a  wistful  eye  on  that 
other  church  whose  followers  were,  alas!  accorded  a 
little  more  liberty  than  was  perhaps  good  for  their 
souls.  But  he  didn't  know,  and  in  any  case  he  would 
like  to  correspond  on  these  important  matters  with 
one  on  the  other  side.  This  letter  met  with  a  warm 
response,  and  there  was  much  correspondence  and 
meetings  with  other  clerics — Anglican  or  Episcopalian, 


242  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

I  forget  which.  But  there  were  also  Presbyterians, 
Lutherans,  and  Methodist  ministers,  all  with  churches 
of  their  own  in  the  town,  and  he  may  have  flirted  a 
little  with  all  of  them.  Then  he  came  for  his  year  of 
waiting  to  us,  during  which  he  amused  himself  by 
teaching  the  little  ones,  smoothing  the  way  for  my 
mathematical  brother,  and  fishing.  But  the  authorities 
of  the  church  had  not  got  rid  of  him;  they  heard  not 
infrequently  from  him,  and  it  was  not  pleasant  hearing. 
He  had  come,  he  told  them,  a  Roman  Catholic  priest 
to  a  Roman  Catholic  country,  and  had  found  himself 
a  stranger  in  a  strange  land.  He  had  waited  patiently 
for  months,  and  had  been  put  of¥  with  idle  promises  or 
thrust  aside,  while  every  greedy  pushing  priest  that 
arrived  from  Spain  and  Italy  was  received  with  open 
arms  and  a  place  provided  for  him.  Then,  when 
his  patience  and  private  means  had  been  exhausted, 
he  had  accidently  been  thrown  among  those  who  were 
not  of  the  Faith,  yet  had  received  him  with  open  arms. 
He  had  been  humiliated  and  pained  at  the  disinterested 
hospitality  and  Christian  charity  shown  to  him  by  those 
outside  the  pale,  after  the  treatment  he  had  received 
from  his  fellow-priests. 

Probably  he  said  more  than  this:  for  it  is  a  fact 
that  he  had  been  warmly  invited  to  preach  in  one  or 
two  of  the  Protestant  churches  in  the  town.  He  did 
not  go  so  far  as  to  accept  that  offer :  he  was  wise  in 
his  generation,  and  eventually  got  his  reward. 

Our  schoolmaster  gone,  we  were  once  more  back 
in  the  old  way;  we  did  just  what  we  liked.  Our 
parents  probably  thought  that  our  life  would  be  on 
the  plains,  with  sheep  and  cattle-breeding  for  only 


THE  NEW  SCHOOLMASTER  243 


vocations,  and  that  should  any  one  of  us,  like  my 
mathematical-minded  brother,  take  some  line  of  his 
own,  he  would  find  out  the  way  of  it  for  himself : 
his  own  sense,  the  light  of  nature,  would  be  his  guide. 
I  had  no  inclination  to  do  anything  with  books  myself : 
books  were  lessons,  therefore  repellent,  and  that  any 
one  should  read  a  book  for  pleasure  was  inconceivable. 
The  only  attempt  to  improve  our  minds  at  this  period 
came,  oddly  enough,  from  my  masterful  brother  who 
despised  our  babyish  intellects — especially  mine.  How- 
ever, one  day  he  announced  that  he  had  a  grand 
scheme  to  put  before  us.  He  had  heard  or  read  of  a 
family  of  boys  living  just  like  us  in  some  wild  isolated 
land  where  there  were  no  schools  or  teachers  and  no 
newspapers,  who  amused  themselves  by  writing  a 
journal  of  their  own,  which  was  issued  once  a  week. 
There  was  a  blue  pitcher  on  a  shelf  in  the  house, 
and  into  this  pitcher  every  boy  dropped  his  contribution, 
and  one  of  them — of  course  the  most  intelligent  one — 
carefully  went  through  them,  selected  the  best,  and 
copied  them  all  out  in  one  large  sheet,  and  this  was 
their  weekly  journal  called  The  Blue  Pitcher,  and  it 
was  read  and  enjoyed  by  the  whole  house.  He  pro- 
posed that  we  should  do  the  same;  he,  of  course, 
would  edit  the  paper  and  write  a  large  portion  of  it' 
it  would  occupy  two  or  four  sheets  of  quarto  paper,  all 
in  his  beautiful  handwriting,  which  resembled  copper- 
plate, and  it  would  be  issued  for  all  of  us  to  read 
every  Saturday.  We  all  agreed  joyfully,  and  as  the 
title  had  taken  our  fancy  we  started  hunting  for  a  blue 
pitcher  all  over  the  house,  but  couldn't  find  such  a 
thing,  and  finally  had  to  put  up  with  a  tin  box  with  a 


244  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

wooden  lid  and  a  lock  and  key.  The  contributions 
were  to  be  dropped  in  through  a  slit  in  the  lid  which 
the  carpenter  made  for  us,  and  my  brother  took  pos- 
session of  the  key.  The  title  of  the  paper  was  to 
be  The  Tin  Box,  and  we  were  instructed  to  write  about 
the  happenings  of  the  week  and  anything  in  fact  which 
had  interested  us,  and  not  to  be  such  little  asses  as  to 
try  to  deal  with  subjects  we  knew  nothing  about.  I 
was  to  say  something  about  birds :  there  was  never  a 
week  went  by  in  which  I  didn't  tell  them  a  wonderful 
story  of  a  strange  bird  I  had  seen  for  the  first  time: 
well,  I  could  write  about  that  strange  bird  and  make 
it  just  as  wonderful  as  I  liked. 

We  set  about  our  task  at  once  with  great  enthusiasm, 
trying  for  the  first  time  in  our  lives  to  put  our  thoughts 
into  writing.  All  went  well  for  a  few  days.  Then 
our  editor  called  us  together  to  hear  an  important  com- 
munication he  wished  to  make.  First  he  showed  us, 
but  would  not  allow  us  to  read  or  handle,  a  fair 
copy  of  the  paper,  or  of  the  portion  he  had  done,  just 
to  enable  us  to  appreciate  the  care  he  was  taking  over 
it.  He  then  went  on  to  say  that  he  could  not  give  so 
much  time  to  the  task  and  pay  for  stationery  as  well 
without  a  small  weekly  contribution  from  us.  This 
would  only  be  about  three-halfpence  or  twopence  from 
our  pocket-money,  and  would  not  be  much  missed. 
To  this  we  all  agreed  at  once  except  my  younger 
brother,  aged  about  seven  at  that  time.  Then,  he  was 
told,  he  would  not  be  allowed  to  contribute  to  the 
paper.  Very  well,  he  v/ouldn't  contribute  to  it,  he 
said.  In  vain  we  all  tried  to  coax  him  out  of  his 
stubborn  resolve :  he  would  not  part  with  a  copper  of 


THE  NEW  SCHOOLMASTER  245 

his  money  and  would  have  nothing  to  do  with  The 
Tin  Box,  Then  the  Editor's  wrath  broke  out,  and  he 
said  he  had  already  written  his  editorial,  but  would 
now,  as  a  concluding  article,  write  a  second  one  in  order 
to  show  up  the  person  who  had  tried  to  wreck  the 
paper,  in  his  true  colours.  He  would  exhibit  him  as 
the  meanest,  most  contemptible  insect  that  ever  crawled 
on  the  surface  of  the  earth. 

In  the  middle  of  this  furious  tirade  my  poor  little 
brother  burst  out  crying.  "Keep  your  miserable  tears 
till  the  paper  is  out,"  shouted  the  other,  ''as  you  will 
have  good  reason  to  shed  them  then.  You  will  be  a 
marked  being,  every  one  will  then  point  the  finger  of 
scorn  at  you  and  wonder  how  he  could  ever  have 
thought  well  of  such  a  pitiful  little  wretch.'' 

This  was  more  than  the  little  fellow  could  stand,  and 
he  suddenly  fled  from  the  room,  still  crying;  then  we 
all  laughed,  and  the  angry  editor  laughed  too,  proud  of 
the  efTect  his  words  had  produced. 

Our  little  brother  did  not  join  us  at  play  that  after- 
noon :  he  was  in  hiding  somewhere,  keeping  watch  on 
the  movements  of  his  enemy,  who  was  no  doubt 
engaged  already  in  writing  that  dreadful  article  which 
would  make  him  a  marked  being  for  the  rest  of  his  life. 

In  due  time  the  editor,  his  task  finished,  came  forth, 
and  mounting  his  horse,  galloped  off;  and  the  little 
watcher  came  out,  and  stealing  into  the  room  where  the 
Tin  Box  was  kept,  carried  it  ofif  to  the  carpenter's  shop. 
There  with  chisel  and  hammer  he  broke  the  lid  to 
pieces,  and  taking  out  all  the  papers,  set  to  work  to  tear 
them  up  into  the  minutest  fragments,  which  were 
carried  out  and  scattered  all  over  the  place. 


246  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

When  the  big  brother  came  home  and  discovered 
what  had  been  done  he  was  in  a  mighty  rage,  and 
went  off  in  search  of  the  avaricious  little  rebel  who  had 
dared  to  destroy  his  work.  But  the  little  rebel  was 
not  to  be  caught;  at  the  right  moment  he  fled  from 
the  coming  tempest  to  his  parents  and  claimed  their 
protection.  Then  the  whole  matter  had  to  be  inquired 
into,  and  the  big  boy  was  told  that  he  was  not  to  thrash 
his  little  brother,  that  he  himself  was  to  blame  for 
everything  on  account  of  the  extravagant  language  he 
had  used,  which  the  poor  little  fellow  had  taken  quite 
seriously.  If  he  actually  believed  The  Tin  Box  article 
was  going  to  have  that  disastrous  effect  on  him,  who 
could  blame  him  for  destroying  it? 

That  was  the  end  of  The  Tin  Box;  not  a  word 
about  starting  it  afresh  was  said,  and  from  that  day 
my  elder  brother  never  mentioned  it.  But  years 
later  I  came  to  think  it  a  great  pity  that  the  scheme 
had  miscarried.  I  believe,  from  later  experience,  that 
even  if  it  had  lasted  but  a  few  weeks  it  would  have 
given  me  the  habit  of  recording  my  observations,  and 
that  is  a  habit  without  which  the  keenest  observation 
and  the  most  faithful  memory  are  not  sufficient  for 
the  field  naturalist.  Thus,  through  the  destruction  of 
the  Tin  Box,  I  believe  I  lost  a  great  part  of  the  result 
of  six  years  of  Hfe  with  wild  nature,  since  it  was  not 
tmtil  six  years  after  my  little  brother's  rebellious  act 
that  I  discovered  the  necessity  of  making  a  note  of 
every  interesting  thing  I  witnessed. 


CHAPTER  XIX 
Brothers 

Our  third  and  last  schoolmaster — His  many  accomplishments 
— His  weakness  and  final  breakdown — My  important 
brother — Four  brothers,  unlike  in  everything  except 
the  voice — A  strange  meeting — Jack  the  Killer,  his  hfe 
and  character — terrible  fight — My  brother  seeks 
instructions  from  Jack — The  gaucho's  way  of  fighting 
and  Jack's  contrasted — Our  sham  fight  with  knives — 
A  wound  and  the  result — My  feeling  about  Jack  and 
his  eyes — Bird-lore — My  two  elder  brothers'  practical 
joke. 

The  vanishing  of  the  unholy  priest  from  our  ken 
left  us  just  about  where  we  had  been  before  his  large 
red  face  had  lifted  itself  above  our  horizon.  At  all 
events  the  illumination  had  not  been  great.  And 
thereafter  it  was  holiday  once  more  for  a  goodish  time 
until  yet  a  third  tutor  came  upon  the  scene: — yet 
another  stranger  in  a  strange  land  who  had  fallen  into 
low  (and  hot)  water  and  was  willing  to  fill  a  vacant 
time  in  educating  us.  Just  as  in  the  case  of  the  O'Keefe, 
he  was  thrust  upon  my  good-natured  and  credulous  fa- 
ther by  his  friends  in  the  capital,  who  had  this  gentle- 
man with  them  and  were  anxious  to  get  him  off  their 
hands.  He  was,  they  assured  my  father,  just  the  man 
he  wanted,  a  fine  fellow  of  good  family,  highly  educated 
and  all  that;  but  he  had  been  a  bit  wild,  and  all  that 

247 


248  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

was  wanted  to  bring  him  round  was  to  get  him  out  a 
good  distance  from  the  capital  and  its  temptations  and 
into  a  quiet,  peaceful  home  like  ours.  Strange  to  say, 
he  actually  turned  out  to  be  all  they  had  said,  and 
more.  He  had  studied  hard  at  college  and  when  read- 
ing for  a  profession;  he  was  a  linguist,  a  musician,  he 
had  literary  tastes,  and  was  well  read  in  science,  and 
above  all  he  was  a  first-rate  mathematician.  Naturally, 
to  my  studious  brother  he  came  as  an  angel  beautiful  and 
bright,  with  no  suggestion  of  the  fiend  in  him;  for  not 
only  was  he  a  mathematician,  but  he  was  also  an  accom- 
plished fencer  and  boxer.  And  so  the  two  were  soon 
fast  friends,  and  worked  hard  together  over  their 
books,  and  would  then  repair  for  an  hour  or  two  every 
day  to  the  plantation  to  fence  and  box  and  practise  with 
pistol  and  rifle  at  the  target.  He  also  took  to  the 
humbler  task  of  teaching  the  rest  of  us  with  consider- 
able zeal,  and  succeeded  in  rousing  a  certain  enthusiasm 
in  us.  We  were,  he  told  us,  grossly  ignorant — simply 
young  barbarians;  but  he  had  penetrated  beneath  the 
thick  crust  that  covered  our  minds,  and  was  pleased  to 
find  that  there  were  possibilities  of  better  things;  that 
if  we  would  but  second  his  efforts  and  throw  ourselves, 
heart  and  soul,  into  our  studies,  we  should  eventually 
develop  from  the  grub  condition  to  that  of  purple- 
winged  butterflies. 

Our  new  teacher  was  tremendously  eloquent,  and  it 
looked  as  if  he  had  succeeded  in  conquering  that 
wildness  or  weakness  or  whatever  it  was  which  had 
been  his  undoing  in  the  past.  Then  came  a  time  when 
he  would  ask  for  a  horse  and  go  for  a  long  ride.  He 
would  make  a  call  at  some  English  estancia,  and  drink 


BROTHERS 


249 


freely  of  the  wine  or  spirits  hospitably  set  on  the  table. 
And  the  result  would  be  that  he  would  come  home 
raving  like  a  lunatic: — a  very  little  alcohol  would 
drive  him  mad.  Then  would  follow  a  day  or  two  of 
repentance  and  black  melancholy;  then  recovery  and 
a  fresh  fair  start. 

All  this  was  somewhat  upsetting  to  all  of  us :  to  my 
mother  it  was  peculiarly  distressing,  and  became  more 
so  when,  in  one  of  his  repentant  fits  and  touched  by 
her  words,  he  gave  her  a  packet  of  his  mother's  letters 
to  read : — the  pathetic  letters  of  a  broken-hearted 
woman  to  her  son,  her  only  and  adored  child,  lost  to 
her  for  ever  in  a  distant  country,  thousands  of  miles 
from  home.  These  sad  appeals  only  made  my  mother 
more  anxious  to  save  him,  and  it  was  no  doubt  her 
influence  that  for  a  while  did  save  and  make  him  able 
to  succeed  in  his  efforts  to  overcome  his  fatal  weakness. 
But  he  was  of  too  sanguine  a  temper,  and  by  and  by 
began  to  think  that  he  had  conquered,  that  he  was  safe, 
that  it  was  time  for  him  to  do  something  great;  and 
with  some  brilliant  scheme  he  had  hatched  in  his  mind, 
he  left  us  and  went  back  to  the  capital  to  work  it  out. 
But  alas!  before  many  months,  when  he  was  getting 
seriously  to  work,  with  friends  and  money  to  help  him 
and  every  prospect  of  success,  he  broke  down  once 
more,  so  hopelessly  that  once  more  he  had  to  be  got 
rid  of,  and  he  was  sent  out  of  the  country,  but  whether 
back  to  his  own  people  or  to  some  other  remote  dis- 
trict in  Argentina  I  do  not  remember,  nor  do  I  know 
what  became  of  him. 

Thus  disastrously  ended  the  third  and  last  attempt 
my  father  made  to  have  us  instructed  at  home.  Nor 


250  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

could  he  send  us  to  town,  where  there  was  but  one 
English  school  for  boys,  run  by  a  weak,  sickly  gentle- 
man, whose  house  was  a  nest  of  fevers  and  every  sort 
of  ailment  incidental  to  boys  herded  together  in  an 
unhealthy  boarding-school.  Prosperous  English  people 
sent  their  children  home  to  be  educated  at  that  time, 
but  it  was  enormously  expensive  and  we  were  not  well 
of¥  enough.  A  little  later  an  exception  had  to  be 
made  in  the  case  of  my  elder  brother,  who  would  not 
settle  down  to  sheep-farming  or  any  other  occupation 
out  on  the  pampas,  but  had  set  his  heart  on  pursuing 
his  studies  abroad. 

At  this  period  of  my  life  this  brother  was  so  impor- 
tant a  person  to  me  that  I  shall  have  to  give  even  more 
space  to  him  in  this  chapter  than  he  had  in  the  last 
one.  Yet  of  my  brothers  he  was  not  the  one  nearest 
to  my  heart.  He  was  five  full  years  my  senior,  and 
naturally  associated  with  an  elder  brother,  while  we 
two  smaller  ones  were  left  to  amuse  ourselves  together 
in  our  own  childish  way.  With  a  younger  brother 
for  only  playmate,  I  prolonged  my  childhood,  and 
when  I  was  ten  my  brother  of  fifteen  appeared  a  young 
man  to  me.  We  were  all  four  extremely  unlike  in 
character  as  well  as  appearance,  and  alike  in  one  thing 
only — the  voice,  inherited  from  our  father;  but  just 
as  our  relationship  appeared  in  that  one  physical  char- 
acter, so  I  think  that  under  all  the  diversities  in  our 
minds  and  temperaments  there  was  a  hidden  quality, 
a  something  of  the  spirit,  which  made  us  one;  and  this, 
I  believe,  came  from  the  mother's  side. 

That  family  likeness  in  the  voice  was  brought  home 
to  us  in  a  curious  way  just  about  this  time,  when  I 


BROTHERS 


251 


was  in  my  tenth  year.  My  brother  went  one  day  to 
Buenos  Ayres,  and  arriving  at  the  stable  where  our 
horses  were  always  put  up,  long  after  dark,  he  left  his 
horse,  and  on  going  out  called  to  the  stableman,  giving 
him  some  direction.  As  soon  as  he  had  spoken,  a 
feeble  voice  was  heard  from  the  open  door  of  a  dark 
room  near  the  gate,  calling,  'That's  a  Hudson  that 
spoke!    Father  or  son — who  is  it?'' 

My  brother  turned  back  and  groped  his  way  into 
the  dark  room,  and  replied :  *'Yes,  I'm  a  Hudson — 
Edwin's  my  name.    Who  are  you?" 

''Oh,  I'm  glad  you're  here!  I'm  your  old  friend 
Jack,"  returned  the  other,  and  it  was  a  happy  meeting 
between  the  boy  in  his  sixteenth  year  and  the  grey- 
headed old  battered  vagabond  and  fighter,  known  far 
and  wide  in  our  part  of  the  country  as  Jack  the  Killer, 
and  by  other  dreadful  nicknames,  both  English  and 
Spanish.  Now  he  was  lying  there  alone,  friendless, 
penniless,  ill,  on  a  rough  bed  the  stableman  had  given 
him  in  his  room.  My  brother  came  home  full  of  the 
subject,  sad  at  poor  old  Jack's  broken-down  condition 
and  rejoicing  that  he  had  by  chance  found  him  there 
and  had  been  able  to  give  him  help. 

Jack  the  Killer  was  one  of  those  strange  Englishmen 
frequently  to  be  met  with  in  those  days,  who  had 
taken  to  the  gaucho's  manner  of  life,  when  the  gaucho 
had  more  liberty  and  was  a  more  lawless  being  than 
he  is  now  or  can  ever  be  again,  unless  that  vast  level 
area  of  the  pampas  should  at  some  future  time  become 
dispeopled  and  go  back  to  v/hat  it  was  down  to  half 
a  century  ago.  He  had  drifted  into  that  outlandish 
place  when  young,  and  finding  the  native  system  of 


252  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

life  congenial  had  made  himself  as  much  of  a  native 
as  he  could,  and  dressed  like  them  and  talked  their 
language,  and  was  horse-breaker,  cattle-drover,  and 
many  other  things  by  turn,  and  like  any  other  gaucho 
he  could  make  his  own  bridle  and  whip  and  horse-gear 
and  lasso  and  bolas  out  of  raw  hide.  And  when  not 
working  he  could  gamble  and  drink  like  any  gaucho 
to  the  manner  born — and  fight  too.  But  here  there 
was  a  difference.  Jack  could  affiliate  with  the  natives, 
yet  could  never  be  just  like  them.  The  stamp  of  the 
foreigner,  of  the  Englishman,  was  never  wholly  eradi- 
cated. He  retained  a  certain  dignity,  a  reserve,  almost 
a  stiffness,  in  his  manner  which  made  him  a  marked 
man  among  them,  and  would  have  made  him  a  butt 
to  the  wits  and  biillies  among  his  comrades  but  for 
his  pride  and  deadly  power.  To  be  mocked  as  a 
foreigner,  a  gringo,  an  inferior  being,  was  what  he 
could  not  stand,  and  the  result  was  that  he  had  to 
fight,  and  it  then  came  as  a  disagreeable  revelation  that 
when  Jack  fought  he  fought  to  kill.  This  was  con- 
sidered bad  form;  for  though  men  were  often  killed 
when  fighting,  the  gaucho' s  idea  is  that  you  do  not 
fight  with  that  intention,  but  rather  to  set  your  mark 
upon  and  conquer  your  adversary,  and  so  give  your- 
self fame  and  glory.  Naturally,  they  were  angry  with 
Jack  and  became  anxious  to  get  rid  of  him,  and  by 
and  by  he  gave  them  an  excuse.  He  fought  with  and 
killed  a  man,  a  famous  young  fighter,  who  had  many 
relations  and  friends,  and  some  of  these  determined  to 
avenge  his  death.  And  one  night  a  band  of  nine  men 
came  to  the  rancho  where  Jack  was  sleeping,  and 
leaving  two  of  their  number  at  the  door  to  kill  him  if 


BROTHERS 


253 


he  attempted  to  escape  that  way,  the  others  burst  into 
his  room,  their  long  knives  in  their  hands.  As  the 
door  was  thrown  open  Jack  woke,  and  instantly  di- 
vining the  cause  of  the  intrusion,  he  snatched  up  the 
knife  near  his  pillow  and  sprang  like  a  cat  out  of  his 
bed;  and  then  began  a  strange  and  bloody  fight,  one 
man,  stark  naked,  with  a  short-bladed  knife  in  his  hand, 
against  seven  men  with  their  long  facons,  in  a  small 
pitch-dark  room.  The  advantage  Jack  had  was  that 
his  bare  feet  made  no  sound  on  the  clay  floor,  and 
that  he  knew  the  exact  position  of  a  few  pieces  of 
furniture  in  the  room.  He  had,  too,  a  marvellous 
agility,  and  the  intense  darkness  was  all  in  his  favour, 
as  the  attackers  could  hardly  avoid  wounding  one 
another.  At  all  events,  the  result  was  that  three  of 
them  were  killed  and  the  other  four  wounded,  all  more 
or  less  seriously.  And  from  that  time  Jack  was  allowed 
to  live  among  them  as  a  harmless,  peaceful  member  of 
the  community,  so  long  as  no  person  twitted  him  with 
being  a  gringo. 

Quite  naturally,  my  brother  regarded  Jack  as  one  of 
his  greatest  heroes,  and  whenever  he  heard  of  his 
being  in  our  neighbourhood  he  would  mount  his  horse 
and  go  off  in  search  of  him,  to  spend  long  hours  in  his 
company  and  persuade  him  to  talk  about  that  awful 
fight  in  a  dark  room  with  so  many  against  him.  One 
result  of  his  intimacy  with  Jack  was  that  he  became 
dissatisfied  with  his  own  progress  in  the  manly  art  of 
self-defence.  It  was  all  very  well  to  make  himself 
proficient  with  the  foils  and  as  a  boxer,  and  to  be  a 
good  shot,  but  he  was  living  among  people  who  had 
the  knife  for  sole  weapon,  and  if  by  chance  he  were 


254  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

attacked  by  a  man  with  a  knife,  and  had  no  pistol  or 
other  weapon,  he  would  find  himself  in  an  exceedingly 
awkward  position.  There  was  then  nothing  to  do  but 
to  practise  with  the  knife,  and  he  wanted  Jack,  who 
had  been  so  successful  with  that  weapon,  to  give  him 
some  lessons  in  its  use. 

Jack  shook  his  head.  If  his  boy  friend  wanted  to 
learn  the  gaucho  way  of  fighting  he  could  easily  do  so. 
The  gaucho  wrapped  his  poncho  on  his  left  arm  to  use 
it  as  a  shield,  and  flourished  his  facon,  or  knife  with  a 
sword-like  blade  and  a  guard  to  the  handle.  This 
whirling  about  of  the  knife  was  quite  an  art,  and  had 
a  fine  look  when  two  accomplished  fighters  stood  up 
to  each  other  and  made  their  weapons  look  like  shining 
wheels  or  revolving  mirrors  in  the  sun.  Meanwhile, 
the  object  of  each  man  was  to  find  his  opportunity  for 
a  sweeping  blow  which  would  lay  his  opponent's  face 
open.  Now  all  that  was  pretty  to  look  at,  but  it  was 
mere  playing  at  fighting  and  he  never  wanted  to  practise 
it.  He  was  not  a  fighter  by  inclination;  he  wanted 
to  live  with  and  be  one  with  the  gauchos,  but  not  to 
fight.  There  were  numbers  of  men  among  them  who 
never  fought  and  were  never  challenged  to  fight,  and 
he  would  be  of  those  if  they  would  let  him.  He  never 
had  a  pistol,  he  wore  a  knife  like  everybody  else,  but  a 
short  knife  for  use  and  not  to  fight.  But  when  he 
found  that,  after  all,  he  had  to  fight  or  else  exist  on 
sufferance  as  a  despised  creature  among  them,  the  butt 
of  every  fool  and  bully,  he  did  fight  in  a  way  which 
he  had  never  been  taught  and  could  not  teach  to 
another.  It  was  nature:  it  was  in  him.  When  the 
dangerous  moment  came  and  knives  flashed  out,  he 


BROTHERS  255 

was  instantly  transformed  into  a  different  being.  He 
was  on  springs,  he  couldn't  keep  still  or  in  one  place 
for  a  second,  or  a  fraction  of  a  second;  he  was  like  a 
cat,  like  indiarubber,  like  steel — like  anything  you  like, 
but  something  that  flew  round  and  about  his  opponent 
and  was  within  striking  distance  one  second  and  a 
dozen  yards  away  the  next,  and  when  an  onset  was 
looked  for  it  never  came  where  it  was  expected  but 
from  another  side,  and  in  two  minutes  his  opponent 
became  confused,  and  struck  blindly  at  him,  and  his 
opportunity  came,  not  to  slash  and  cut  but  to  drive  his 
knife  with  all  his  power  to  the  heart  in  the  other's 
body  and  finish  him  for  ever.  That  was  how  he  had 
fought  and  had  killed,  and  because  of  that  way  of 
fighting  he  had  got  his  desire  and  had  been  permitted 
to  live  in  peace  and  quiet  until  he  had  grown  grey, 
and  no  fighter  or  swashbuckler  had  said  to  him,  ''Do 
you  still  count  yourself  a  killer  of  men?  then  kill  me 
and  prove  your  right  to  the  title,"  and  no  one  had 
jeered  at  or  called  him  ''gringo." 

In  spite  of  this  discouragement  my  brother  was  quite 
determined  to  learn  the  art  of  defending  himself  with  a 
knife,  and  he  would  often  go  out  into  the  plantation 
and  practise  for  an  hour  with  a  tree  for  an  opponent, 
and  try  to  capture  Jack's  unpremeditated  art  of  darting 
hither  and  thither  about  his  enemy  and  making  his 
deadly  strokes.  But  as  the  tree  stood  still  and  had  no 
knife  to  oppose  him,  it  was  unsatisfactory,  and  one 
day  he  proposed  to  me  and  my  younger  brother  to 
have  a  fight  with  knives,  just  to  find  out  if  he  was 
making  any  progress.  He  took  us  out  to  the  far  end  of 
the  plantation,  where  no  one  would  see  us,  and  produced 


256  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

three  very  big  knives,  with  blades  like  butchers'  knives, 
and  asked  us  to  attack  him  with  all  our  might  and 
try  our  best  to  wound  him,  while  he  would  act  solely 
on  the  defensive.  At  first  we  declined,  and  reminded 
him  that  he  had  punished  us  terribly  with  gloves 
and  foils  and  singlestick,  and  that  it  would  be  even 
worse  with  knives — he  would  cut  us  in  pieces!  No, 
he  said,  he  would  not  dream  of  hurting  us:  it  would 
be  absolutely  safe  for  us,  and  for  him  too,  as  he 
didn't  for  a  moment  believe  that  we  could  touch  him 
with  our  weapons,  no  matter  how  hard  we  tried.  And 
at  last  we  were  persuaded,  and  taking  off  our  jackets 
and  wrapping  them,  gaucho-fashion,  on  our  left  arms 
as  a  protection,  we  attacked  him  with  the  big  knives, 
and  getting  excited  we  slashed  and  lunged  at  him  with 
all  our  power,  while  he  danced  and  jumped  and  flew 
about  a  la  Jack  the  Killer,  using  his  knife  only  to 
guard  himself  and  to  try  and  knock  ours  out  of  our 
hands;  but  in  one  such  attempt  at  disarming  me  his 
weapon  went  too  far  and  wounded  my  right  arm  about 
three  inches  below  the  shoulder.  The  blood  rushed 
out  and  dyed  my  sleeve  red,  and  the  fight  came  to  an 
end.  He  was  greatly  distressed,  and  running  off  to 
the  house,  quickly  returned  with  a  jug  of  water, 
sponge,  towel,  and  linen  to  bind  the  wounded  arm. 
It  was  a  deep  long  cut,  and  the  scar  has  remained  to 
this  day,  so  that  I  can  never  wash  in  the  morning 
without  seeing  it  and  remembering  that  old  fight  with 
knives.  Eventually  he  succeeded  in  stopping  the  flow 
of  blood,  and  binding  my  arm  tightly  round;  and  then 
he  made  the  desponding  remark,  "Of  course  they  will 
have  to  know  all  about  it  now." 


BROTHERS 


257 


*'Oh  no,"  I  returned,  ''why  should  they?  My  arm 
has  stopped  bleeding,  and  they  won't  find  out.  If  they 
notice  that  I  can't  use  it — well,  I  can  just  say  I  had  a 
knock/' 

He  was  immensely  relieved,  and  so  pleased  that  he 
patted  me  on  the  back — the  first  time  he  had  ever  done 
so — and  praised  me  for  my  manliness  in  taking  it  that 
way;  and  to  be  praised  by  him  was  such  a  rare  and 
precious  thing  that  I  felt  very  proud,  and  began  to  think 
I  was  almost  as  good  as  a  fighter  myself.  And  when 
all  traces  of  blood  had  been  removed  and  we  were  back 
in  the  house  and  at  the  supper-table,  I  was  unusually 
talkative  and  hilarious,  not  only  to  prevent  any  one 
from  suspecting  that  I  had  just  been  seriously  wounded 
in  a  fight  with  knives,  but  also  to  prove  to  my  brother 
that  I  could  take  these  knocks  with  proper  fortitude. 
No  doubt  he  was  amused;  but  he  didn't  laugh  at  me, 
he  was  too  delighted  to  escape  being  found  out. 

There  were  no  more  fights  with  knives,  although 
when  my  wound  was  healed  he  did  broach  the  subject 
again  on  two  or  three  occasions,  and  was  anxious  to 
convince  me  that  it  would  be  greatly  to  our  advantage 
to  know  how  to  defend  ourselves  with  a  knife  while 
living  among  people  who  were  always  as  ready  on  any 
slight  provocation  to  draw  a  knife  on  you  as  a  cat  was 
to  unsheathe  its  claws.  Nor  could  all  he  told  us  about 
the  bloody  and  glorious  deeds  of  Jack  el  Matador 
arouse  any  enthusiasm  in  me;  and  though  in  his  speech 
and  manner  Jack  was  as  quiet  and  gentle  a  being  as 
one  could  meet,  I  could  never  overcome  a  curious 
shrinking,  an  almost  uncanny  feeling,  in  his  presence, 
particularly  when  he  looked  straight  at  me  with  those 


258  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

fine  eyes  of  his.  They  were  Hght  grey  in  colour,  clear 
and  bright  as  in  a  young  man,  but  the  expression  pained 
me;  it  was  too  piercing,  too  concentrated,  and  it  re- 
minded me  of  the  look  in  a  cat's  eyes  when  it  crouches 
motionless  just  before  making  its  dash  at  a  bird. 

Nevertheless,  the  fight  and  wound  had  one  good 
result  for  me;  my  brother  had  all  at  once  become  less 
masterful,  or  tyrannical,  towards  me,  and  even  began 
to  show  some  interest  in  my  solitary  disposition  and 
tastes.  A  little  bird  incident  brought  out  this  feeling 
in  a  way  that  was  very  agreeable  to  me.  One  evening 
I  told  him  and  our  eldest  brother  that  I  had  seen  a 
strange  thing  in  a  bird  which  had  led  me  to  find  out 
something  new.  Our  commonest  species  was  the  para- 
sitic cowbird,  which  laid  its  eggs  anywhere  in  the  nests 
of  all  the  other  small  birds.  Its  colour  was  a  deep 
glossy  purple,  almost  black;  and  seeing  two  of  these 
birds  flying  over  my  head,  I  noticed  that  they  had  a 
small  chestnut-coloured  spot  beneath  the  wing,  which 
showed  that  they  were  not  the  common  species.  It  had 
then  occurred  to  me  that  I  had  heard  a  peculiar  note 
or  cry  uttered  by  what  I  took  to  be  the  cowbird,  which 
was  unlike  any  note  of  that  bird;  and  following  this 
clue,  I  had  discovered  that  we  had  a  bird  in  our  plan- 
tation which  was  like  the  cowbird  in  size,  colour,  and 
general  appearance,  but  was  a  different  species.  They 
appeared  amused  by  my  story,  and  a  few  days  later 
they  closely  interrogated  me  on  three  consecutive  eve- 
nings as  to  what  I  had  seen  that  was  remarkable  that 
day,  in  birds  especially,  and  were  disappointed  because 
I  had  nothing  interesting  to  tell  them. 

The  next  day  my  brother  said  he  had  a  confession 


BROTHERS  259 

to  make  to  me.  He  and  the  elder  brother  had  agreed 
to  play  a  practical  joke  on  me,  and  had  snared  a  com- 
mon cowbird  and  dyed  or  painted  its  tail  a  brilliant 
scarlet,  then  liberated  it,  expecting  that  I  should  meet 
with  it  in  my  day's  rambles  and  bird-watching  in  the 
plantation  and  would  be  greatly  excited  at  the  discovery 
of  yet  a  third  purple  cowbird,  with  a  scarlet  tail,  but 
otherwise  not  distinguishable  from  the  common  one. 
Now,  on  reflection,  he  was  glad  I  had  not  found  their 
bird  and  given  them  their  laugh,  and  he  was  ashamed  at 
having  tried  to  play  such  a  mean  trick  on  me! 


CHAPTER  XX 
Birding  in  the  Marshes 

Visiting  the  marshes — Pajonales  and  Juncales — Abundant 
bird  life — A  Coots'  metropolis — Frightening  the  Coots — 
Grebe  and  Painted  Snipe  colonies — The  haunt  of  the 
Social  Marsh  Hawk — The  beautiful  Jacanaand  its  eggs — 
The  colony  of  Marsh  Trupials— The  bird's  music — 
The  aquatic  plant  Durasmillo — The  TrupiaFs  nest  and 
eggs — Recalhng  a  beauty  that  has  vanished — Our 
games  with  gaucho  boys — I  am  injured  by  a  bad  boy — 
The  shepherd's  advice — Getting  my  revenge  in  a 
treacherous  manner — Was  it  right  or  wrong? — The 
game  of  Hunting  the  Ostrich. 

At  this  time  of  my  boy-life  most  of  the  daylight  hours 
were  spent  out  of  doors,  as  when  not  watching  the 
birds  in  our  plantation  or  asked  to  go  and  look  at  the 
flock  grazing  somewhere  a  mile  or  so  from  home,  in 
the  absence  of  the  shepherd  or  his  boy,  I  was  always 
away  somewhere  on  the  plain  with  my  small  brother  on 
egg-hunting  or  other  expeditions.  In  the  spring  and 
summer  we  often  visited  the  lagoons  or  marshes,  the 
most  fascinating  places  I  knew  on  account  of  their 
abundant  wild  bird  life.  There  were  four  of  these 
lagoons,  all  in  different  directions  and  all  within  two  or 
three  miles  from  home.  They  were  shallow  lakelets, 
called  lagunas,  each  occupying  an  area  of  three  or  four 
hundred  acres,  with  some  open  water  and  the  rest  over- 

260 


BIRDING  IN  THE  MARSHES  261 


grown  with  bright  green  sedges  in  dense  beds,  called 
pajonales,  and  immense  beds  of  bulrushes,  called  jun- 
cales.  These  last  were  always  the  best  to  explore  when 
the  water  was  not  deeper  than  the  saddle-girth,  and 
where  the  round  dark  polished  stems,  crowned  with 
their  bright  brown  tufts,  were  higher  than  our  heads 
when  we  urged  our  horses  through  them.  These  were 
the  breeding-places  of  some  small  birds  that  had  their 
beautifully-made  nests  a  couple  of  feet  or  so  above 
the  water,  attached  in  some  cases  to  single,  in  others 
to  two  or  three,  rush  stems.  And  here,  too,  we  found 
the  nests  of  several  large  species — egret,  night-heron, 
cormorant,  and  occasionally  a  hawk — birds  which  build 
on  trees  in  forest  districts,  but  here  on  the  treeless 
region  of  the  pampas  they  made  their  nests  among 
the  rushes.  The  fourth  lakelet  had  no  rush-  or  sedge- 
beds  and  no  reeds,  and  was  almost  covered  with  a 
luxuriant  growth  of  the  floating  camalote,  a  plant 
which  at  a  distance  resembles  the  wild  musk  or  mimulus 
in  its  masses  of  bright  green  leaves  and  brilliant  yellow 
blossoms.  This,  too,  was  a  fascinating  spot,  as  it 
swarmed  with  birds,  some  of  them  being  kinds  which 
did  not  breed  in  the  reeds  and  rushes.  It  was  a  sort 
of  metropolis  of  the  coots,  and  before  and  after  the 
breeding  season  they  would  congregate  in  flocks  of 
many  hundreds  on  the  low  wet  shore,  where  their 
black  forms  had  a  singular  appearance  on  the  moist 
green  turf.  It  looked  to  me  like  a  reproduction  in 
small  size  of  a  scene  I  had  witnessed — the  vast  level 
green  pampa  with  a  scattered  herd  of  two  or  three 
thousand  black  cattle  grazing  on  it,  on  a  large  cattle 
estate  where  only  black  beasts  were  bred.    We  always 


262  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

thought  it  great  fun  when  we  found  a  big  assembly  of 
coots  at  some  distance  from  the  margin.  Whipping  up 
our  horses,  we  would  suddenly  charge  the  flock  to  see 
them  run  and  fly  in  a  panic  to  the  lake  and  rush  over 
the  open  water,  striking  the  surface  with  their  feet  and 
raising  a  perfect  cloud  of  spray  behind  them. 

Coots,  however,  were  common  everywhere,  but  this 
water  was  the  only  breeding-place  of  the  grebe  in  our 
neighbourhood ;  yet  here  we  could  find  scores  of  nests 
any  day — scores  with  eggs  and  a  still  greater  number  of 
false  nests,  and  we  could  never  tell  which  had  eggs  in  it 
before  pulling  ofif  the  covering  of  wet  weeds.  Another 
bird  rarely  seen  at  any  other  spot  than  this  was  the 
painted  snipe,  a  prettily-marked  species  with  a  green 
curved  bill.  It  has  curiously  sluggish  habits,  rising 
only  when  almost  trodden  upon,  and  going  off  in  a  wild 
sacred  manner  like  a  nocturnal  species,  then  dropping 
again  into  hiding  at  a  short  distance.  The  natives  call 
it  dormilon — sleepy-head.  On  one  side  of  the  lagoon, 
where  the  ground  was  swampy  and  wet,  there  was 
always  a  breeding-colony  of  these  quaint  birds;  at  every 
few  yards  one  would  spring  up  close  to  the  hoofs,  and 
dismounting  we  would  find  the  little  nest  on  the  wet 
ground  under  the  grass,  always  with  two  eggs  so  thickly 
blotched  all  over  with  black  as  to  appear  almost  entirely 
black. 

There  were  other  rushy  lagoons  at  a  greater  distance 
which  we  visited  only  at  long  intervals,  and  one  of  these 
I  must  describe,  as  it  was  almost  more  attractive  than 
any  one  of  the  others  on  account  of  its  bird  life.  Here, 
too,  th^re  were  some  kinds  which  we  never  found  breed- 
ing elsewhere. 


BIRDING  IN  THE  MARSHES  263 

It  was  smaller  than  the  other  lagoons  I  have  described 
and  much  shallower,  so  that  the  big  birds,  such  as  the 
stork,  wood-ibis,  crested  screamer,  and  the  great  blue 
ibis,  called  vanduria,  and  the  roseate  spoonbill,  could 
wade  almost  all  over  it  without  wetting  their  feathers. 
It  was  one  of  those  lakes  which  appear  to  be  drying  up, 
and  was  pretty  well  covered  with  a  growth  of  camalote 
plant,  mixed  with  reed,  sedge,  and  bulrush  patches. 
It  was  the  only  water  in  our  part  of  the  country  where 
the  large  water-snail  was  found,  and  the  snails  had 
brought  the  bird  that  feeds  on  them — the  large  social 
marsh  hawk,  a  slate-coloured  bird  resembling  a  buzzard 
in  its  size  and  manner  of  flight.  But  being  exclusively 
a  feeder  on  snails,  it  lives  in  peace  and  harmony  with 
the  other  bird  inhabitants  of  the  marsh.  There  was 
always  a  colony  of  forty  or  fifty  of  these  big  hawks  to 
be  seen  at  this  spot.  A  still  more  interesting  bird 
was  the  jacana,  as  it  is  spelt  in  books,  but  pronounced 
ya-sa-na^  by  the  Indians  of  Paraguay,  a  quaint  rail-like 
bird  supposed  to  be  related  to  the  plover  family:  black 
and  maroon-red  in  colour,  the  wing-quills  a  shining 
greenish  yellow,  it  has  enormously  long  toes,  spurs  on 
its  wings,  and  yellow  wattles  on  its  face.  Here  I  first 
saw  this  strange  beautiful  fowl,  and  here  to  my  de- 
light I  found  its  nest  in  three  consecutive  summers, 
with  three  or  four  clay-coloured  eggs  spotted  with 
chestnut-red. 

Here,  too,  was  the  breeding-place  of  the  beautiful 
black-and-white  stilt,  and  of  other  species  too  many  to 
mention.  But  my  greatest  delight  was  in  finding  breed- 
ing in  this  place  a  bird  I  loved  more  than  all  the  others 
I  have  named — a  species  of  marsh  trupial,  a  bird  about 


264  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

the  size  of  the  common  cowbird,  and  like  it,  of  a 
uniform  deep  purple,  but  with  a  cap  of  chestnut-col- 
oured feathers  on  its  head.  I  loved  this  bird  for  its 
song — the  peculiar  delicate  tender  opening  notes  and 
trills.  In  spring  and  autumn  large  flocks  would  occa- 
sionally visit  our  plantation,  and  the  birds  in  hundreds 
would  settle  on  a  tree  and  all  sing  together,  producing 
a  marvellous  and  beautiful  noise,  as  of  hundreds  of 
small  bells  all  ringing  at  one  time.  It  was  by  the 
water  I  first  found  their  breeding-place,  where  about 
three  or  four  hundred  birds  had  their  nests  quite  near 
together,  and  nests  and  eggs  and  the  plants  on  which 
they  were  placed,  with  the  solicitous  purple  birds  flying 
round  me,  made  a  scene  of  enchanting  beauty.  The 
nesting-site  was  on  a  low  swampy  piece  of  ground 
grown  over  with  a  semi-aquatic  plant  called  durasmillo 
in  the  vernacular.  It  has  a  single  white  stalk,  woody 
in  appearance,  two  to  three  feet  high,  and  little  thicker 
than  a  man's  middle  finger,  with  a  palm-like  crown  of 
large  loose  lanceolate  leaves,  sO'  that  it  looks  like  a 
miniature  palm,  or  rather  an  ailanthus  tree,  which  has 
a  slender  perfectly  white  bole.  The  solanaceous  flowers 
are  purple,  and  it  bears  fruit  the  size  of  cherries,  black 
as  jet,  in  clusters  of  three  to  five  or  six.  In  this  forest 
of  tiny  palms  the  nests  were  hanging,  attached  to  the 
boles,  where  two  or  three  grew  close  together;  it  was 
a  long  and  deep  nest,  skilfully  made  of  dry  sedge 
leaves  woven  together,  and  the  eggs  were  white  or 
skim-milk  blue  spotted  with  black  at  the  large  end. 

That  enchanting  part  of  the  marsh,  with  its  forest  of 
graceful  miniature  trees,  where  the  social  trupials  sang 
and  wove  their  nests  and  reared  their  young  in  company 


BIRDING  IN  THE  MARSHES  265 


- — that  very  spot  is  now,  I  dare  say,  one  immense  field 
of  corn,  lucerne,  or  flax,  and  the  people  who  now  live 
and  labour  there  know  nothing  of  its  former  beautiful 
inhabitants,  nor  have  they  ever  seen  or  even  heard  of 
the  purple-plumaged  trupial,  with  its  chestnut  cap  and 
its  delicate  trilling  song.  And  when  I  recall  these 
vanished  scenes,  those  rushy  and  flowery  meres,  with 
their  varied  and  multitudinous  wild  bird  life — the  cloud 
of  shining  wings,  the  heart-enlivening  wild  cries,  the 
joy  unspeakable  it  was  to  me  in  those  early  years — I 
am  glad  to  think  I  shall  never  revisit  them,  that  I  shall 
finish  my  life  thousands  of  miles  removed  from  them, 
cherishing  to  the  end  in  my  heart  the  image  of  a  beauty 
which  has  vanished  from  earth. 

My  elder  brother  occasionally  accompanied  us  on  our 
egg-hunting  visits  to  the  lagoons,  and  he  also  joined  us 
in  our  rides  to  the  two  or  three  streams  where  we  used 
to  go  to  bathe  and  fish;  but  he  took  no  part  in  our 
games  and  pastimes  with  the  gaucho  boys:  they  were 
beneath  him.  We  ran  races  on  our  ponies,  and  when 
there  were  race-meetings  in  our  neighbourhood  my 
father  would  give  us  a  little  money  to  go  and  enter  our 
ponies  in  a  boys'  race.  We  rarely  won  when  there  were 
any  stakes,  as  the  native  boys  were  too  clever  on  horse- 
back for  us,  and  had  all  sorts  of  tricks  to  prevent  us 
from  winning,  even  when  our  ponies  were  better  than 
theirs.  We  also  went  tinamou,  or  partridge,  catching, 
and  sometimes  we  had  sham  fights  with  lances,  or  long 
canes  with  which  we  supplied  the  others.  These  games 
were  very  rough,  and  one  day  when  we  were  armed, 
not  with  canes  but  long  straight  pliant  green  poplar 
boughs  we  had  cut  for  the  purpose,  we  were  having 


266  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

a  running  fight,  when  one  of  the  boys  got  in  a  rage 
with  me  for  some  reason  and,  dropping  behind,  then 
coming  quietly  up,  gave  me  a  blow  on  the  face  and 
head  with  his  stick  which  sent  me  flying  off  my  pony. 
They  all  dashed  on,  leaving  me  there  to  pick  myself 
up,  and  mounting  my  pony  I  went  home  crying  with 
pain  and  rage.  The  blow  had  fallen  on  my  head,  but 
the  pliant  stick  had  come  down  over  my  face  from 
the  forehead  to  the  chin,  taking  the  skin  off.  On  my 
way  back  I  met  our  shepherd  and  told  him  my  story, 
and  said  I  would  go  to  the  boy's  parents  to  tell  them. 
He  advised  me  not  to  do  so;  he  said  I  must  learn  to 
take  my  own  part,  and  if  any  one  injured  me  and  I 
wanted  him  punished  I  must  do  the  punishing  myself. 
If  I  made  any  fuss  and  complaint  about  it  I  should 
only  get  laughed  at,  and  he  would  go  scot  free.  What, 
then,  was  I  to  do?  I  asked,  seeing  that  he  was  older 
and  stronger  than  myself,  and  had  his  heavy  whip  and 
knife  to  defend  himself  against  attack. 

''Oh,  don't  be  in  a  hurry  to  do  it,''  he  returned. 
'Wait  for  an  opportunity,  even  if  you  have  to  wait 
for  days;  and  when  it  comes,  do  to  him  just  what  he 
did  to  you.  Don't  warn  him,  but  simply  knock  him 
off  his  horse,  and  then  you  will  be  quits." 

Now  this  shepherd  was  a  good  man,  much  respected 
by  every  one,  and  I  was  glad  that  in  his  wisdom  and 
sympathy  he  had  put  such  a  simple,  easy  plan  into  my 
head,  and  I  dried  my  tears  and  went  home  and  washed 
the  blood  from  my  face,  and  when  asked  how  I  had 
got  that  awful  wound  that  disfigured  me  I  made  light 
of  it.  Two  days  later  my  enemy  appeared  on  the 
scene.    I  heard  his  voice  outside  the  gate  calling  to 


BIRDING  IN  THE  MARSHES  267 


some  one,  and  peering  out  I  saw  him  sitting  on  his 
horse.  His  guilty  conscience  made  him  afraid  to  dis- 
mount, but  he  was  anxious  to  find  out  what  was  going 
to  be  done  about  his  treatment  of  me,  also,  if  he  could 
see  me,  to  discover  my  state  of  mind  after  two 
days. 

I  went  out  to  the  timber  pile  and  selected  a  bamboo 
cane  about  twenty  feet  long,  not  too  heavy  to  be 
handled  easily,  and  holding  it  up  like  a  lance  I  marched 
to  the  gate  and  started  swinging  it  round  as  I  ap- 
proached him,  and  showing  a  cheerful  countenance. 
"What  are  you  going  to  do  with  that  cane?''  he  shouted, 
a  little  apprehensively.  *'Wait  and  see,"  I  returned. 
''Something  to  make  you  laugh."  Then,  after  whirl- 
ing it  round  half  a  dozen  times  more,  I  suddenly 
brought  it  down  on  his  head  with  all  my  force,  and 
did  exactly  what  I  had  been  counselled  to  do  by  the 
wise  shepherd — knocked  him  clean  off  his  horse.  But 
he  was  not  stunned,  and  starting  up  in  a  screeching 
fury,  he  pulled  out  his  knife  to  kill  me.  And  I,  for 
strategic  reasons,  retreated,  rather  hastily.  But  his 
wild  cries  quickly  brought  several  persons  on  the  scene, 
and,  recovering  courage,  I  went  back  and  said  tri- 
umphantly, ''Now  we  are  quits!"  Then  my  father 
was  called  and  asked  to  judge  between  us,  and  after 
hearing  both  sides  he  smiled  and  said  his  judgment  was 
not  needed,  that  we  had  already  settled  it  all  ourselves, 
and  there  was  nothing  now  between  us.  I  laughed, 
and  he  glared  at  me,  and  mounting  his  horse,  rode  off 
without  another  word.  It  was,  however,  only  because 
he  was  suffering  from  the  blow  on  his  head;  when  I 
next  met  him  we  were  good  friends  again. 


268  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

More  than  once  during  my  life,  when  recalHng  that 
episode,  I  have  asked  myself  if  I  did  right  in  taking 
the  shepherd's  advice?  Would  it  have  been  better, 
when  I  went  out  to  him  with  the  bamboo  cane,  and  he 
asked  me  what  I  was  going  to  do  with  it,  if  I  had  gone 
up  to  him  and  shown  him  my  face  with  that  broad 
band  across  it  from  the  chin  to  the  temple,  where  the 
skin  had  come  off  and  a  black  crust  had  formed,  and 
had  said  to  him :  'This  is  the  mark  of  the  blow  you 
gave  me  the  day  before  yesterday,  when  you  knocked 
me  ofif  my  horse;  you  see  it  is  on  the  right  side  of  my 
face  and  head;  now  take  the  cane  and  give  me  another 
blow  on  the  left  side''?  Tolstoy  (my  favourite  author, 
by  the  way)  would  have  answered:  ''Yes,  certainly  it 
would  have  been  better  for  you — better  for  your  soul." 
Nevertheless,  I  still  ask  myself:  "Would  it?"  and  if 
this  incident  should  come  before  me  half  a  second  be- 
fore my  final  disappearance  from  earth,  I  should  still 
be  in  doubt. 

One  of  our  favourite  games  at  this  period — the  only 
game  on  foot  we  ever  played  with  the  gaucho  boys — 
was  hunting  the  ostrich.  To  play  this  game  we  had 
bolas,  only  the  balls  at  the  end  of  the  thong  were  not  of 
lead  like  those  with  v/hich  the  grown-up  gaucho  hunter 
captures  the  real  ostrich  or  rhea.  We  used  light  wood 
to  make  balls,  so  as  not  to  injure  each  other.  The 
fastest  boy  was  chosen  to  play  the  ostrich,  and  would 
be  sent  oflf  to  roam  ostrich-fashion  on  the  plain,  pre- 
tending to  pick  clover  from  the  ground  as  he  walked 
in  a  stooping  attitude,  or  making  little  runs  and  waving 
his  arms  about  like  wings,  then  standing  erect  and 


BIRDING  IN  THE  MARSHES  269 


mimicking  the  hollow  booming  sounds  the  cock  bird 
emits  when  calling  the  flock  together. 

The  hunters  would  then  come  on  the  scene  and  the 
chase  begin,  the  ostrich  putting  forth  all  his  speed, 
doubling  to  this  ^ide  and  that,  and  occasionally  thinking 
to  escape  by  hiding,  dropping  upon  the  ground  in  the 
shelter  of  a  cardoon  thistle,  only  to  jump  up  again 
when  the  shouts  of  the  hunters  drew  near,  to  rush  on 
as  before.  At  intervals  the  bolas  would  come  whirling 
through  the  air,  and  he  would  dodge  or  avoid  them 
by  a  quick  turn,  but  eventually  he  would  be  hit  and 
the  thong  would  wind  itself  about  his  legs  and  down 
he  would  come. 

Then  the  hunters  would  gather  round  him,  and  pull- 
ing out  their  knives  begin  operations  by  cutting  off  his 
head;  then  the  body  would  be  cut  up,  the  wings  and 
breast  removed,  these  being  the  best  parts  for  eating, 
and  there  would  be  much  talk  about  the  condition 
and  age  of  the  bird,  and  so  on.  Then  would  come 
the  most  exciting  part  of  the  proceedings — the  cut- 
ting the  gizzard  open  and  the  examination  of  its  varied 
contents;  and  by  and  by  there  would  be  an  exultant 
shout,  and  one  of  the  boys  would  pretend  to  come 
on  a  valuable  find — a  big  silver  coin  perhaps,  a  patacon, 
and  there  would  be  a  great  gabble  over  it  and  perhaps 
a  fight  for  its  possession,  and  they  would  wrestle  and 
roll  on  the  grass,  struggling  for  the  im.aginary  coin. 
That  finished,  the  dead  ostrich  would  get  up  and  place 
himself  among  the  hunters,  while  the  boy  who  had  cap- 
tured him  with  his  bolas  would  then  play  ostrich,  and 
the  chase  would  begin  anew. 

When  this  game  was  played  I  was  always  chosen  as 


270  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

first  ostrich,  as  at  that  time  I  could  easily  outrun  and 
out- jump  any  of  my  gaucho  playmates,  even  those  who 
were  three  or  four  years  older  than  myself.  Never- 
theless, these  games — horse-racing,  sham  fights,  and 
ostrich-hunting,  and  the  like — gave  me  no  abiding  satis- 
faction; they  were  no  sooner  over  than  I  would  go 
back,  almost  with  a  sense  of  relief,  to  my  solitary 
rambles  and  bird-watching,  and  to  wishing  that  the  day 
would  come  when  my  masterful  brother  would  allow 
me  to  use  a  gun  and  practise  the  one  sport  of  wild- 
duck  shooting  I  desired. 

That  was  soon  to  come,  and  will  form  the  subject  of 
the  ensuing  chapter. 


CHAPTER  XXI 


Wild-Fowling  Adventures 

My  sporting  brother  and  the  armoury — I  attend  him  on  his 
shooting  expeditions — Adventure  with  Golden  Plover — 
A  morning  after  Wild  Duck — Our  punishment— I 
learn  to  shoot — My  first  gun — My  first  wild  duck — 
My  ducking  tactics — My  gun's  infirmities — Duck-shoot- 
ing with  a  blunderbus — ^Ammunition  runs  out — An 
adventure  with  Rosy-bill  Duck — Coarse  gunpowder  and 
home-made  shot — The  war  danger  comes  our  way — 
We  prepare  to  defend  the  house — The  danger  over  and 
my  brother  leaves  home. 

I  HAVE  said  I  was  not  allowed  to  shoot  before  the  age 
of  ten,  but  the  desire  had  come  long  before  that;  I 
was  no  more  than  seven  when  I  used  to  wish  to  be  a 
big,  or  at  all  events  a  bigger,  boy,  so  that,  like  my 
brother,  I  too  might  carry  a  gun  and  shoot  big  wild 
birds.  But  he  said  ''No''  very  emphatically,  and  there 
was  an  end  of  it. 

He  had  virtually  made  himself  the  owner  of  all  the 
guns  and  weapons  generally  in  the  house.  These  in- 
cluded three  fowling-pieces,  a  rifle,  an  ancient  Tower 
musket  with  a  flint-lock — doubtless  dropped  from  the 
dead  hands  of  a  slain  British  soldier  in  one  of  the 
fights  in  Buenos  Ayres  in  1807  or  1808  ;  a  pair  of  heavy 
horse  pistols,  and  a  ponderous,  formidable-looking  old 
blunderbuss,  wide  at  the  mouth  as  a  tea-cup  saucer. 

271 


272  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

His,  too,  were  the  swords.  To  our  native  neighbours 
this  appeared  an  astonishingly  large  collection  of 
weapons,  for  in  those  days  they  possessed  no  fire-arm 
except,  in  some  rare  instances,  a  carbine,  brought  home 
by  a  runaway  soldier  and  kept  concealed  lest  the  au- 
thorities should  get  wind  of  it. 

As  the  next  best  thing  to  doing  the  shooting  myself, 
I  attended  my  brother  in  his  expeditions,  to  hold  his 
horse  or  to  pick  up  and  carry  the  birds,  and  was  deeply 
grateful  to  him  for  allowing  me  to  serve  him  in  this 
humble  capacity.  We  had  some  exciting  adventures 
together.  One  summer  day  he  came  rushing  home  to 
get  his  gun,  having  just  seen  an  immense  flock  of  golden 
plover  come  down  at  a  spot  a  mile  or  so  from  home. 
With  his  gun  and  a  sack  to  put  the  birds  in,  he  mounted 
his  pony,  I  with  him,  as  our  ponies  were  accustomed 
to  carry  two  and  even  three  at  a  pinch.  We  found 
the  flock  where  he  had  seen  it  alight — thousands  of 
birds  evenly  scattered,  running  about  busily  feeding  on 
the  wet  level  ground. 

The  bird  I  speak  of  is  the  Charadrius  dominicana, 
which  breeds  in  Arctic  America  and  migrates  in  August 
and  September  to  the  plains  of  La  Plata  and  Patagonia, 
so  that  it  travels  about  sixteen  thousand  miles  every 
year.  In  appearance  it  is  so  like  our  golden  plover, 
Charadrius  phwialis,  as  to  be  hardly  distinguishable 
from  it.  The  birds  were  quite  tame:  all  our  wild 
birds  were  if  anything  too  tame,  although  not  shock- 
ingly so  as  Alexander  Selkirk  found  them  on  his  island 
— the  poet's,  not  the  real  Selkirk.  The  birds  being 
so  scattered,  all  he  could  do  was  to  lie  flat  down 
and  fire  with  the  barrel  of  his  fowling-piece  level  with 


WILD. FOWLING  ADVENTURES  273 


the  flock,  and  the  result  was  that  the  shot  cut  through 
the  loose  flock  to  a  distance  of  thirty  or  forty  yards, 
dropping  thirty-nine  birds,  which  we  put  into  the  sack, 
and  remounting  our  pony  set  of¥  home  at  a  fast  gallop. 
We  were  riding  barebacked,  and  as  our  pony's  back 
had  a  forward  slope  we  slipped  further  and  further 
forward  until  we  were  almost  on  his  neck,  and  I,  sit- 
ting behind  my  brother,  shouted  for  him  to  stop.  But 
he  had  his  gun  in  one  hand  and  the  sack  in  the  other, 
and  had  lost  the  reins;  the  pony,  however,  appeared 
to  have  understood,  as  he  came  to  a  dead  stop  of  his 
own  accord  on  the  edge  of  a  rain-pool,  into  which 
we  were  pitched  headlong.  When  I  raised  my  head 
I  saw  the  bag  of  birds  at  my  side,  and  the  gun  lying 
under  water  at  a  little  distance;  about  three  yards 
further  on  my  brother  was  just  sitting  up,  with  the 
water  streaming  from  his  long  hair,  and  a  look  of 
astonishment  on  his  face.  But  the  pool  was  quite  clean, 
with  the  soft  grass  for  bottom,  and  we  were  not  hurt. 

However,  we  did  sometimes  get  into  serious  trouble. 
On  one  occasion  he  persuaded  me  and  the  little  brother 
to  accompany  him  on  a  secret  shooting  expedition  he 
had  planned.  We  were  to  start  on  horseback  before 
daybreak,  ride  to  one  of  the  marshes  about  two  miles 
from  home,  shoot  a  lot  of  duck,  and  get  back  about 
breakfast-time.  The  main  thing  was  to  keep  the  plan 
secret,  then  it  would  be  all  right,  since  the  sight  of  the 
number  of  wild  duck  we  should  have  to  show  on  our 
return  would  cause  our  escapade  to  be  overlooked. 

In  the  evening,  instead  of  liberating  our  ponies  as 
usual,  we  took  and  tethered  them  in  the  plantation, 
and  next  morning  about  three  o'clock  we  crept  cau- 


274  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

tiously  out  of  the  house  and  set  of¥  on  our  adventure. 
It  was  a  winter  morning,  misty  and  cold  when  the 
Hght  came,  and  the  birds  were  excessively  wild  at  that 
hour.  In  vain  we  followed  the  flocks,  my  brother 
stalking  them  through  the  sedges,  above  his  knees  in 
the  water;  not  a  bird  could  he  get,  and  at  last  we 
were  obliged  to  go  back  empty-handed  to  face  the 
music.  At  half-past  ten  we  rode  to  the  door,  wet  and 
hungry  and  miserable,  to  find  the  whole  house  in  a 
state  of  commotion  at  our  disappearance.  When  we 
were  first  missed  in  the  morning,  one  of  the  workmen 
reported  that  he  had  seen  us  taking  our  horses  to 
conceal  them  in  the  plantation  at  a  little  after  dark,  and 
it  was  assumed  that  we  had  run  away — that  we  had 
gone  south  where  the  country  was  more  thinly  settled 
and  wild  animals  more  abundant,  in  quest  of  new  and 
more  stirring  adventures.  They  were  greatly  relieved 
to  see  us  back,  but  as  we  had  no  ducks  to  placate  them 
we  could  not  be  forgiven,  and  as  a  punishment  we  had 
to  go  break fastless  that  day,  and  our  leader  was  in 
addition  sternly  lectured  and  forbidden  to  use  a  gun 
for  the  future. 

We  thought  this  a  very  hard  thing,  and  for  the 
following  days  were  inclined  to  look  at  life  as  a  rather 
tame,  insipid  business;  but  soon,  to  our  joy,  the  ban 
was  removed.  In  forbidding  us  the  use  of  the  guns 
my  father  had  punished  himself  as  well  as  us,  since  he 
never  thoroughly  enjoyed  a  meal — breakfast,  dinner, 
or  supper — unless  he  had  a  bird  on  the  table,  wild 
duck,  plover,  or  snipe.  A  cold  roast  duck  was  his 
favourite  breakfast  dish,  and  he  was  never  quite  happy 
when  he  didn't  get  it. 


WILD-FOWLING  ADVENTURES  275 

Still,  I  was  not  happy,  and  could  not  be  so  long  as  I 
was  not  allowed  to  shoot.  It  was  a  privilege  to  be 
allowed  to  attend,  but  it  seemed  to  me  that  at  the  age  of 
ten  I  was  quite  old  enough  to  have  a  gun.  I  had  been 
a  rider  on  horseback  since  the  age  of  six,  and  in  some 
exercises  I  was  not  much  behind  my  brother,  although 
when  we  practised  with  the  foils  or  with  the  gloves  he 
punished  me  in  rather  a  barbarous  manner.  He  was 
my  guide  and  philosopher,  and  had  also  been  a  better 
friend  ever  since  our  fight  with  knives  and  the  cow- 
bird  episode;  nevertheless  he  still  managed  to  dissemble 
his  love,  and  when  I  revolted  against  his  tyranny  I 
generally  got  well  punished  for  it. 

About  that  time  an  old  friend  of  the  family,  who 
took  an  interest  in  me  and  wished  to  do  something  to 
encourage  me  in  my  natural  history  tastes,  made  me  a 
present  of  a  set  of  pen-and-ink  drawings.  There  was, 
however,  nothing  in  these  pictures  to  help  me  in  the 
line  I  had  taken:  they  were  mostly  architectural  draw- 
ings made  by  himself  of  buildings — ^houses,  churches, 
castles,  and  so  on,  but  my  brother  fell  in  love  with 
them  and  began  to  try  to  get  them  from  me.  He 
could  not  rest  without  them,  and  was  continually 
offering  me  something  of  his  own  in  exchange  for 
them;  but  though  I  soon  grew  tired  of  looking  at  them 
I  refused  to  part  with  them,  either  because  his  anxiety 
to  have  them  gave  them  a  fictitious  value  in  my  sight, 
or  because  it  was  pleasing  to  be  able  to  inflict  a  little 
pain  on  him  in  return  for  the  many  smarts  I  had 
suffered  at  his  hands.  At  length  one  day,  finding  me 
still  unmoved,  he  all  at  once  offered  to  teach  me  to 
shoot  and  to  allow  me  the  use  of  one  of  the  guns  in 


276  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

exchange  for  the  pictures.  I  could  hardly  believe  my 
good  fortune:  it  would  have  surprised  me  less  if  he 
had  offered  to  give  me  his  horse  with  ''saddle  and 
bridle  also/' 

As  soon  as  the  drawings  were  in  his  hand  he  took 
me  to  our  gun-room  and  gave  me  a  quite  unneeded 
lesson  in  the  art  of  loading  a  gun — first  so  much 
powder,  then  a  wad  well  rammed  down  with  the  old 
obsolete  ramrod;  then  so  much  shot  and  a  second 
wad  and  ramming  down;  then  a  percussion  cap  on  the 
nipple.  He  then  led  the  way  to  the  plantation,  and 
finding  two  wild  pigeons  sitting  together  in  a  tree,  he 
ordered  me  to  fire.  I  fired,  and  one  fell,  quite  dead, 
and  that  completed  my  education,  for  now  he  declared 
he  was  not  going  to  waste  any  more  time  on  my 
instruction. 

The  gun  he  had  told  me  to  use  was  a  single-barrel 
fowling-piece,  an  ancient  converted  flintlock,  the  stock 
made  of  an  iron-hard  black  wood  with  silver  mountings. 
When  I  stood  it  up  and  measured  myself  by  it  I  found 
it  was  nearly  two  inches  taller  than  I  was,  but  it  was 
light  to  carry  and  served  me  well:  I  became  as  much 
attached  to  it  as  to  any  living  thing,  and  it  was  like  a 
living  being  to  me,  and  I  had  great  faith  in  its  intelli- 
gence. 

My  chief  ambition  was  to  shoot  wild  duck.  My 
brother  shot  them  in  preference  to  anything  else :  they 
were  so  much  esteemed  and  he  was  so  much  commended 
when  he  came  in  with  a  few  in  his  bag  that  I  looked 
on  duck-shooting  as  the  greatest  thing  I  could  go  in 
for.  Ducks  were  common  enough  with  us  and  in 
great  variety;  I  know  not  in  what  country  more  kinds 


WILD-FOWLING  ADVENTURES  277 

are  to  be  found.  There  were  no  fewer  than  five  species 
of  teal,  the  commonest  a  dark  brown  bird  with  black 
mottlings;  another,  very  common,  was  pale  grey,  the 
plumage  beautifully  barred  and  pencilled  with  brown 
and  black;  then  we  had  the  blue-winged  teal,  a 
maroon-red  duck  which  ranges  from  Patagonia  to 
California;  the  ringed  teal,  with  salmon-coloured  breast 
and  velvet-black  collar;  the  Brazilian  teal,  a  lovely 
olive-brown  and  velvet-black  duck,  with  crimson  beak 
and  legs.  There  were  two  pintails,  one  of  which  was 
the  most  abundant  species  in  the  country;  also  a 
widgeon,  a  lake  duck,  a  shoveller  duck,  with  red  plum- 
age, grey  head  and  neck,  and  blue  wings;  and  two 
species  of  the  long-legged  whistling  or  tree  duck.  An- 
other common  species  was  the  rosy-billed  duck,  now 
to  be  seen  on  ornamental  waters  in  England;  and 
occasionally  we  saw  the  wild  Muscovy  duck,  called 
Royal  duck  by  the  natives,  but  it  was  a  rare  visitor  so 
far  south.  We  also  had  geese  and  swans :  the  upland 
geese  from  the  Megellanic  Straits  that  came  to  us  in 
winter — that  is  to  say,  our  winter  from  May  to  August. 
And  there  were  two  swans,  the  black-necked,  which 
has  black  flesh  and  is  unfit  to  eat,  and  the  white  or 
Coscoroba  Swan,  as  good  a  table  bird  as  there  is  in 
the  world.  And  oddly  enough  this  bird  has  been 
known  to  the  natives  as  a  "goose"  since  the  discovery 
of  America,  and  now  after  three  centuries  our  scientific 
ornithologists  have  made  the  discovery  that  it  is  a  link 
between  the  geese  and  swans,  but  is  more  goose  than 
swan.  It  is  a  beautiful  white  bird,  with  bright  red  bill 
and  legs,  the  wings  tipped  with  black;  and  has  a  loud 


278  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

musical  cry  of  three  notes,  the  last  prolonged  note  with 
a  falling  inflection. 

These  were  the  birds  we  sought  after  in  winter; 
but  we  could  shoot  for  the  table  all  the  year  round, 
for  no  sooner  was  it  the  duck's  pairing  and  breeding 
season  than  another  bird-population  from  their  breed- 
ing-grounds in  the  arctic  and  sub-arctic  regions  came  on 
the  scene — plover,  sandpiper,  godwit,  curlew,  whimbrel, 
— a  host  of  northern  species  that  made  the  summer- 
dried  pampas  their  winter  abode. 

My  first  attempt  at  duck-shooting  was  made  at  a 
pond  not  many  minutes'  walk  from  the  house,  where 
I  found  a  pair  of  shoveller  ducks,  feeding  in  their 
usual  way  in  the  shallow  water  with  head  and  neck 
immersed.  Anxious  not  to  fail  in  this  first  trial,  I  got 
down  flat  on  the  ground  and  crawled  snake-fashion  for 
a  distance  of  fifty  or  sixty  yards,  until  I  was  less  than 
twenty  yards  from  the  birds,  when  I  fired  and  killed 
one. 

That  first  duck  was  a  great  joy,  and  having  succeeded 
so  well  with  my  careful  tactics,  I  continued  in  the  same 
way,  confining  my  attention  to  pairs  or  small  parties 
of  three  or  four  birds,  when  by  patiently  creeping  a 
long  distance  through  the  grass  I  could  get  very  close 
to  them.  In  this  way  I  shot  teal,  widgeon,  pintail, 
shovellers,  and  finally  the  noble  rosy-bill,  which  was 
esteemed  for  the  table  above  all  the  others. 

My  brother,  ambitious  of  a  big  bag,  invariably  went 
a  distance  from  home  in  quest  of  the  large  flocks,  and 
despised  my  way  of  duck-shooting;  but  it  sometimes 
vexed  him  to  find  on  his  return  from  a  day's  expedition 
that  I  had  succeeded  in  getting  as  many  birds  as  him- 


WILD-FOWLING  ADVENTURES  279 


self  without  having  gone  much  more  than  a  mile  from 
home. 

Some  months  after  I  had  started  shooting  I  began 
to  have  trouble  with  my  beloved  gun,  owing  to  a 
weakness  it  had  developed  in  its  lock — one  of  the 
infirmities  incidental  to  age  which  the  gunsmiths  of 
Buenos  Ayres  were  never  able  to  cure  effectually. 
Whenever  it  got  bad  I  was  permitted  to  put  it  into 
the  cart  sent  to  town  periodically,  to  have  it  repaired, 
and  would  then  go  gunless  for  a  week  or  ten  days. 
On  one  of  these  occasions  I  one  day  saw  a  party  of 
shoveller  duck  dibbling  in  a  small  rain-pool  at  the  side 
of  the  plantation,  within  a  dozen  yards  of  the  old 
moat  which  surrounded  it.  Ducks  always  appeared  to 
be  exceptionally  tame  and  bold  when  I  was  without  a 
gun,  but  the  boldness  of  those  shovellers  was  more 
than  I  could  stand,  and  running  to  the  house  I  got 
out  the  old  blunderbuss,  which  I  had  never  been  for- 
bidden to  use,  since  no  one  had  ever  thought  it  possible 
that  I  should  want  to  use  such  a  monster  of  a  gun. 
But  I  was  desperate,  and  loading  it  for  the  first  (and 
last)  time,  I  went  after  those  shovellers. 

I  had  once  been  told  that  it  would  be  impossible  to 
shoot  wild  duck  or  anything  with  the  blunderbuss 
unless  one  could  get  within  a  dozen  yards  of  them,  on 
account  of  its  tremendous  scattering  power.  Well,  by 
going  along  the  bottom  of  the  moat,  which  was  luckily 
without  water  just  then,  I  could  get  as  near  the  birds 
as  I  liked  and  kill  the  whole  flock.  When  I  arrived 
abreast  of  the  pool  I  crept  up  the  grassy  crumbling 
outside  bank,  and  resting  the  ponderous  barrel  on  the 
top  of  the  bank,  fired  at  the  shovellers  at  a  distance  of 


28o  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

about  fifteen  yards,  and  killed  nothing,  but  received  a 
kick  which  sent  me  flying  to  the  bottom  of  the  foss. 
It  was  several  days  before  I  got  over  that  pain  in  my 
shoulder. 

Later  on  there  was  a  period  of  trouble  and  scarcity 
in  the  land.  There  was  war,  and  the  city  from  which 
we  obtained  our  supplies  was  besieged  by  an  army 
from  the  ''upper  provinces''  which  had  come  down  to 
break  the  power  and  humble  the  pride  of  Buenos  Ayres. 
Our  elders  missed  their  tea  and  coffee  most,  but  our 
anxiety  was  that  we  should  soon  be  without  powder 
and  shot.  My  brother  constantly  warned  me  not  to 
be  so  wasteful,  although  he  fired  half  a  dozen  shots 
to  my  one  without  getting  more  birds  for  the  table. 
At  length  there  came  a  day  when  there  was  little  shot 
left — just  about  enough  to  fill  one  shot-pouch — and 
knowing  it  was  his  intention  to  have  a  day  out,  I 
sneaked  into  the  gun-room  and  loaded  my  fowling-piece 
just  to  have  one  shot  more.  He  was  going  to  try  for 
upland  geese  that  day,  and,  as  I  had  expected,  carried 
oflf  all  the  shot. 

After  he  had  gone  I  took  my  gun,  and  being  deter- 
mined to  make  the  most  of  my  one  shot,  refused  to  be 
tempted  by  any  of  the  small  parties  of  duck  I  found 
in  the  pools  near  home,  even  when  they  appeared 
quite  tame.  At  length  I  encountered  a  good-sized  flock 
of  rosy-bills  by  the  side  of  a  marshy  stream  about 
two  miles  from  home.  It  was  a  still,  warm  day  in  mid- 
winter, and  the  ducks  were  dozing  on  the  green  bank 
in  a  beautiful  crowd,  and  as  the  land  near  them  was 
covered  with  long  grass,  I  saw  it  would  be  possible  to 
get  quite  close  to  them.    Leaving  my  pony  at  a  good 


WILD-FOWLING  ADVENTURES  281 


distance,  I  got  down  flat  on  the  ground  and  began  my 
long  laborious  crawl,  and  got  within  twenty-five  yards 
of  the  flock.  Never  had  I  had  such  a  chance  before! 
As  I  peeped  through  the  grass  and  herbage  I  imagined 
all  sorts  of  delightful  things — my  brother  far  away 
vainly  firing  long  shots  at  the  wary  geese,  and  his 
return  and  disgust  at  the  sight  of  my  heap  of  noble 
rosy-bills,  all  obtained  near  home  at  one  shot! 

Then  I  fired  just  as  the  birds,  catching  sight  of  my 
cap,  raised  their  long  necks  in  alarm.  Bang!  Up 
they  rose  w^ith  a  noise  of  wings,  leaving  not  one  behind! 
Vainly  I  watched  the  flock,  thinking  that  some  of  the 
birds  I  must  have  hit  would  soon  be  seen  to  waver  in 
their  course  and  then  drop  to  earth.  But  none  wavered 
or  fell.  I  went  home  as  much  puzzled  as  disappointed. 
Late  in  the  day  my  brother  returned  with  one  upland 
goose  and  three  or  four  ducks,  and  inquired  if  I  had 
had  any  luck.  I  told  him  my  sad  story,  whereupon  he 
burst  out  laughing  and  informed  me  that  he  had  taken 
care  to  draw  the  shot  from  my  gun  before  going  out. 
He  was  up  to  my  little  tricks,  he  said;  he  had  seen 
what  I  had  done,  and  w^as  not  going  to  allow  me  to 
waste  the  little  shot  we  had  left! 

Our  duck-shooting  was  carried  on  under  difficulties 
during  those  days.  We  searched  for  ammunition  at  all 
the  houses  for  some  leagues  around,  and  at  one  house 
we  found  and  purchased  a  quantity  of  exceedingly 
coarse  gunpowder,  with  grain  almost  the  size  of  canary- 
seed.  They  told  us  it  was  cannon-powder,  and  to 
make  it  fit  for  use  in  our  fowling-pieces  we  ground  it 
fine  with  glass  and  stone  bottles  for  rollers  on  a  tin 
plate.    Shot  we  could  not  find,  so  had  to  make  it  for 


282  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

ourselves  by  cutting  up  plates  of  lead  into  small  square 
bits  with  a  knife  and  hammer. 

Eventually  the  civil  war,  which  had  dragged  on  for  a 
long  time,  brought  an  unexpected  danger  to  our  house 
and  caused  us  to  turn  our  minds  to  more  important 
things  than  ducks.  I  have  said  that  the  city  was 
besieged  by  an  army  from  the  provinces,  but  away  on 
the  southern  frontier  of  the  province  of  Buenos  Ayres 
the  besieged  party,  or  faction,  had  a  powerful  friend  in 
an  estanciero  in  those  parts  who  was  friendly  with  the 
Indians,  and  who  collected  an  army  of  Indians  hungry 
for  loot,  and  gauchos,  mostly  criminals  and  deserters, 
who  in  those  days  were  accustomed  to  come  from  all 
parts  of  the  country  to  put  themselves  under  the 
protection  of  this  good  man. 

This  horde  of  robbers  and  enthusiasts  was  now  ad- 
vancing upon  the  capital  to  raise  the  siege,  and  each 
day  brought  us  alarming  reports — whether  true  or 
false  we  could  not  know — of  depredations  they  were 
committing  on  their  march.  The  good  man,  their  com- 
mander, was  not  a  soldier,  and  there  was  no  pretence 
of  discipline  of  any  kind;  the  men,  it  was  said,  did 
what  they  liked,  swarming  over  the  country  on  the 
line  of  march  in  bands,  sacking  and  burning  houses, 
killing  or  driving  of¥  the  cattle,  and  so  on.  Our  house 
was  unfortunately  on  the  main  road  running  south 
from  the  capital,  and  directly  in  the  way  of  the  coming 
rabble.  That  the  danger  was  a  real  and  very  great  one 
we  could  see  in  the  anxious  faces  of  our  elders;  besides, 
nothing  was  now  talked  of  but  the  coming  army  and  of 
all  we  had  to  fear. 

At  this  juncture  my  brother  took  it  upon  himself  to 


WILD-FOWLING  AVDENTURES  283 


make  preparations  for  the  defence  of  the  house.  Our 
oldest  brother  was  away,  shut  up  in  the  besieged  city, 
but  the  three  of  us  at  home  determined  to  make  a 
good  fight,  and  we  set  to  work  cleaning  and  polishing 
up  our  firearms — the  Tower  musket,  the  awful  blunder- 
buss, the  three  fowling-pieces,  double  and  single-bar- 
relled, and  the  two  big  horse-pistols  and  an  old  revolver. 
We  collected  all  the  old  lead  we  could  find  about  the 
place  and  made  bullets  in  a  couple  of  bullet-moulds  we 
had  found — one  for  ounce  and  one  for  small  bullets, 
three  to  the  ounce.  The  fire  to  melt  the  lead  was  in 
a  shelter  we  had  made  behind  an  outhouse,  and  here 
one  day,  in  spite  of  all  our  precautions,  we  were  dis- 
covered at  work,  with  rows  and  pyramids  of  shining 
bullets  round  us,  and  our  secret  was  out.  We  were 
laughed  at  as  a  set  of  young  fools  for  our  pains. 
'^Never  mind,"  said  my  brother.  *^Let  them  mock 
now;  by  and  by  when  it  comes  to  choosing  between 
having  our  throats  cut  and  defending  ourselves,  they 
will  probably  be  glad  the  bullets  were  made." 

But  though  they  laughed,  our  work  was  not  inter- 
fered with,  and  some  hundreds  of  bullets  were  turned 
out  and  made  quite  a  pretty  show. 

Meanwhile  the  besiegers  were  not  idle:  they  had  in 
their  army  a  cavalry  officer  who  had  had  a  long  experi- 
ence of  frontier  warfare  and  had  always  been  successful 
in  his  fights  with  the  pampas  Indians;  and  this  man, 
with  a  picked  force  composed  of  veteran  fighters,  w^as 
dispatched  against  the  barbarians.  They  had  already 
crossed  the  Salado  river  and  were  within  two  or  three 
easy  marches  of  us,  when  the  small  disciplined  force 
met  and  gave  them  battle  and  utterly  routed  them 


284  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

Indians  and  gauchos  were  sent  flying  south  like  thistle- 
down before  the  wind;  but  all  being  well-mounLed,  not 
many  were  killed. 

So  ended  that  danger,  and  I  think  we  boys  were  all 
a  little  disappointed  that  no  use  had  been  made  of  our 
bright  beautiful  bullets.  I  am  sure  my  brother  was; 
but  soon  after  that  he  left  home  for  a  distant  country, 
and  our  shooting  and  other  adventures  together  were 
ended  for  ever. 


CHAPTER  XXII 
Boyhood's  End 

The  book — ^The  Saledero,  or  killing-grounds,  and  their 
smell — Walls  built  of  bullocks'  skulls — A  pestilential 
city — River  water  and  Aljibe  water — Days  of  lassitude 
— Novel  scenes — Home  again — Typhus — My  first  day 
out — Birthday  reflections — What  I  asked  of  life — A 
boy's  mind — A  brother's  resolution — End  of  our  thou- 
sand and  one  nights — A  reading  spell — My  boyhood 
ends  in  disaster. 

This  book  has  already  run  to  a  greater  length  than 
was  intended;  nevertheless  there  must  be  yet  another 
chapter  or  two  to  bring  it  to  a  proper  ending,  which  I 
can  only  find  by  skipping  over  three  years  of  my  life, 
and  so  getting  at  once  to  the  age  of  fifteen.  For  that 
was  a  time  of  great  events  and  serious  changes,  bodily 
and  mental,  which  practically  brought  the  happy  time 
of  my  boyhood  to  an  end. 

On  looking  back  over  the  book,  I  find  that  on  three 
or  four  occasions  I  have  placed  some  incident  in  the 
wrong  chapter  or  group,  thus  making  it  take  place  a 
year  or  so  too  soon  or  too  late.  These  small  errors 
of  memory  are,  however,  not  worth  altering  now:  so 
long  as  the  scene  or  event  is  rightly  remembered  and 
pictured  it  doesn't  matter  much  whether  I  was  six  or 
seven,  or  eight  years  old  at  the  time.  I  find,  too,  that 
I  have  omitted  many  things  which  perhaps  deserved  a 

285 


286  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

place  in  the  book — scenes  and  events  which  are  vividly 
remembered,  but  which  unfortunately  did  not  come  up 
at  the  right  moment,  and  so  were  left  out. 

Of  these  scenes  unconsciously  omitted,  I  will  now 
give  one  which  should  have  appeared  in  the  chapter 
describing  my  first  visit  to  Buenos  Ayres  city :  placed 
here  it  will  serve  very  well  as  an  introduction  to  this 
last  chapter. 

In  those  days,  and  indeed  down  to  the  'seventies  of 
last  century,  the  south  side  of  the  capital  was  the  site 
of  the  famous  Saladero,  or  killing-grounds,  where  the 
fat  cattle,  horses  and  sheep  brought  in  from  all  over 
the  country  were  slaughtered  every  day,  some  to  supply 
the  town  with  beef  and  mutton  and  to  make  charque, 
or  sun-dried  beef,  for  exportation  to  Brazil,  where  it 
was  used  to  feed  the  slaves,  but  the  greater  number 
of  the  animals,  including  all  the  horses,  were  killed 
solely  for  their  hides  and  tallow.  The  grounds  covered 
a  space  of  three  or  four  square  miles,  where  there  were 
cattle  enclosures  made  of  upright  posts  placed  close 
together,  and  some  low  buildings  scattered  about.  To 
this  spot  were  driven  endless  flocks  of  sheep,  half  or 
wholly  wild  horses  and  dangerous-looking,  long-horned 
cattle  in  herds  of  a  hundred  or  so  to  a  thousand,  each 
moving  in  its  cloud  of  dust,  with  noise  of  bellowings 
and  bleatings  and  furious  shouting  of  the  drovers  as 
they  galloped  up  and  down,  urging  the  doomed  animals 
on.  When  the  beasts  arrived  in  too  great  numbers  to 
be  dealt  with  in  the  buildings,  you  could  see  hundreds 
of  cattle  being  killed  in  the  open  all  over  the  grounds 
in  the  old  barbarous  way  the  gauchos  use,  every  animal 
being  first  lassoed,  then  hamstrung,  then  its  throat  cut 


BOYHOOD'S  END 


287 


— a  hideous  and  horrible  spectacle,  with  a  suitable 
accompaniment  of  sounds  in  the  wild  shouts  of  the 
slaughterers  and  the  awful  bellowings  of  the  tortured 
beasts.  Just  where  the  animal  was  knocked  down  and 
killed,  it  was  stripped  of  its  hide  and  the  carcass  cut 
up,  a  portion  of  the  flesh  and  the  fat  being  removed 
and  all  the  rest  left  on  the  ground  to  be  devoured  by 
the  pariah  dogs,  the  carrion  hawks,  and  a  multitude 
of  screaming  black-headed  gulls  always  in  attendance. 
The  blood  so  abundantly  shed  from  day  to  day,  mixing 
with  the  dust,  had  formed  a  crust  half  a  foot  thick  all 
over  the  open  space:  let  the  reader  try  to  imagine  the 
smell  of  this  crust  and  of  tons  of  offal  and  flesh  and 
bones  lying  everywhere  in  heaps.  But  no,  it  cannot 
be  imagined.  The  most  dreadful  scenes,  the  worst  in 
Dante's  Inferno,  for  example,  can  be  visualized  by  the 
inner  eye;  and  sounds,  too,  are  conveyed  to  us  in  a 
description  so  that  they  can  be  heard  mentally;  but  it 
is  not  so  with  smells.  The  reader  can  only  take  my 
word  for  it  that  this  smell  was  probably  the  worst  ever 
known  on  the  earth,  unless  he  accepts  as  true  the  story 
of  Tobit  and  the  ^'fishy  fumes"  by  means  of  which  that 
ancient  hero  defended  himself  in  his  retreat  from  the 
pursuing  devil. 

It  was  the  smell  of  carrion,  of  putrifying  flesh,  and 
of  that  old  and  ever-newly  moistened  crust  of  dust 
and  coagulated  blood.  It  was,  or  seemed,  a  curiously 
substantial  and  stationary  smell;  travellers  approaching 
or  leaving  the  capital  by  the  great  south  road,  which 
skirted  the  killing-grounds,  would  hold  their  noses  and 
ride  a  mile  or  so  at  a  furious  gallop  until  they  got  out 
of  the  abominable  stench. 


288  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

One  extraordinary  feature  of  the  private  quint  as  or 
orchards  and  plantations  in  the  vicinity  of  the  Saladeros 
was  the  walls  or  hedges.  These  were  built  entirely  of 
cows'  skulls,  seven,  eight,  or  nine  deep,  placed  evenly 
like  stones,  the  horns  projecting.  Hundreds  of  thou- 
sands of  skulls  had  been  thus  used,  and  some  of  the 
old,  very  long  walls,  crowned  with  green  grass  and 
with  creepers  and  wild  flowers  growing  from  the  cavities 
in  the  bones,  had  a  strangely  picturesque  but  somewhat 
uncanny  appearance.  As  a  rule  there  were  rows  of 
old  Lombardy  poplars  behind  these  strange  walls  or 
fences. 

In  those  days  bones  were  not  utilized:  they  were 
thrown  away,  and  those  who  wanted  walls  in  a  stone- 
less  land,  where  bricks  and  wood  for  palings  were  dear 
to  buy,  found  in  the  skulls  a  useful  substitute. 

The  abomination  I  have  described  was  but  one  of 
many — the  principal  and  sublime  stench  in  a  city  of 
evil  smells,  a  populous  city  built  on  a  plain  without 
drainage  and  without  water-supply  beyond  that  which 
was  sold  by  watermen  in  buckets,  each  bucketful  con- 
taining about  half  a  pound  of  red  clay  in  solution. 
It  is  true  that  the  best  houses  had  algibes,  or  cisterns, 
under  the  courtyard,  where  the  rainwater  from  the  flat 
roofs  was  deposited.  I  remember  that  water  well :  you 
always  had  one  or  two  to  half-a-dozen  scarlet  wrigglers, 
the  larvae  of  mosquitoes,  in  a  tumblerful,  and  you 
drank  your  water,  quite  calmly,  wrigglers  and  all ! 

All  this  will  serve  to  give  an  idea  of  the  condition 
of  the  city  of  that  time  from  the  sanitary  point  of 
view,  and  this  state  of  things  lasted  down  to  the  'seven- 
ties of  the  last  century,  when  Buenos  Ay  res  came  to  be 


BOYHOOD'S  END 


289 


the  chief  pestilential  city  of  the  globe  and  was  obliged 
to  call  in  engineers  from  England  to  do  something  to 
save  the  inhabitants  from  extinction. 

When  I  was  in  my  fifteenth  year,  before  any  changes 
had  taken  place  and  the  great  outbreaks  of  cholera  and 
yellow  fever  were  yet  to  come,  I  spent  four  or  five 
weeks  in  the  city,  greatly  enjoying  the  novel  scenes 
and  new  life.  After  about  ten  or  twelve  days  I  began 
to  feel  tired  and  languid,  and  this  feeling  grew  on  me 
day  by  day  until  it  became  almost  painful  to  exert 
myself  to  visit  even  my  most  favoured  haunts — the 
great  South  Market,  where  cage-birds  were  to  be  seen 
in  hundreds,  green  paroquets,  cardinals,  and  bishop- 
birds  predominating;  or  to  the  river  front,  where  I 
spent  much  time  fishing  for  little  silvery  king-fishes 
from  the  rocks;  or  further  away  to  the  quintas  and 
gardens  on  the  cliff,  where  I  first  feasted  my  eyes  on 
the  sight  of  orange  groves  laden  with  golden  fruit 
amidst  the  vivid  green  polished  foliage,  and  old  olive 
trees  with  black  egg-shaped  fruit  showing  among  the 
grey  leaves. 

And  through  it  all  the  feehng  of  lassitude  continued, 
and  was,  I  thought,  due  to  the  fact  that  I  was  on 
foot  instead  of  on  horseback,  and  walking  on  a  stony 
pavement  instead  of  on  a  green  turf.  It  never  occurred 
to  me  that  there  might  be  another  cause,  that  I  was 
breathing  in  a  pestilential  atmosphere  and  that  the  poi- 
son was  working  in  me. 

Leaving  town  I  travelled  by  some  conveyance  to 
spend  a  night  at  a  friend's  house,  and  next  morning 
set  out  for  home  on  horseback.  I  had  about  twenty- 
seven  miles  across  country  to  ride  and  never  touched 


290  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

a  road,  and  I  was  no  sooner  on  my  way  than  my 
spirits  revived ;  I  was  well  and  unspeakably  happy  again, 
on  horseback  on  the  wide  green  plain,  drinking  in  the 
pure  air  like  a  draught  of  eternal  life.  It  was  autumn, 
and  the  plain  as  far  as  one  could  see  on  every  side  a 
moist  brilliant  green,  with  a  crystal  blue  sky  above, 
over  which  floated  shining  white  clouds.  The  healthy 
glad  feeling  lasted  through  my  ride  and  for  a  day  or 
two  after,  during  which  I  revisited  my  favourite  haunts 
in  the  grounds,  rejoicing  to  be  with  my  beloved  birds 
and  trees  once  more. 

Then  the  hateful  town  feeling  of  lassitude  returned 
on  me  and  all  my  vigour  was  gone,  all  pleasure  in  life 
ended.  Thereafter  for  a  fortnight  I  spent  the  time 
moping  about  the  house;  then  there  was  a  spell  of 
frosty  weather  with  a  bleak  cutting  wind  to  tell  us  that 
it  was  winter,  which  even  in  those  latitudes  can  be 
very  cold.  One  day  after  early  dinner  my  mother 
and  sisters  went  in  the  carriage  to  pay  a  visit  to  a 
neighbouring  estancia,  and  my  brothers  being  out  or 
absent  from  home  I  was  left  alone.  The  verandah 
appeared  to  me  the  warmest  place  I  could  find,  as  the 
sun  shone  on  it  warm  and  bright,  and  there  I  settled 
down  on  a  chair  placed  against  the  wall  at  the  side  of 
a  heap  of  sacks  of  meal  or  something  which  had  been 
left  there,  and  formed  a  nice  shelter  from  the  wind. 

The  house  was  strangely  quiet,  and  the  westering 
sun  shining  full  on  me  made  me  feel  quite  comfortable, 
and  in  a  little  while  I  fell  asleep.  The  sun  set  and  it 
grew  bitterly  cold,  but  I  did  not  wake,  and  when  my 
mother  returned  and  inquired  for  me  I  could  not  be 
found.    Finally  the  whole  household  turned  out  with 


BOYHOOD'S  END  291 

lanterns  and  searched  for  me  up  and  down  through 
the  plantation,  and  the  hunt  was  still  going  on  when, 
about  ten  o'clock  at  night,  some  one  hurrying  along 
the  verandah  stumbled  on  me  in  my  sheltered  corner 
by  the  sacks,  still  in  my  chair  but  unconscious  and  in 
a  burning  fever.  It  was  the  dread  typhus,  an  almost 
obsolete  malady  in  Europe,  and  in  fact  in  all  civilized 
countries,  but  not  uncommon  at  that  date  in  the  pesti- 
lential city.  It  was  wonderful  that  I  lived  through  it 
in  a  place  where  we  were  out  of  reach  of  doctors  and 
apothecaries,  with  only  my  mother's  skill  in  nursing 
and  her  knowledge  of  such  drugs  as  were  kept  in  the 
house  to  save  me.  She  nursed  me  day  and  night  for 
the  three  weeks  during  which  the  fever  lasted,  and 
when  it  left  me,  a  mere  shadow  of  my  former  self,  I 
was  dumb — not  even  a  little  Yes  or  No  could  I  articulate 
however  hard  I  tried,  and  it  was  at  last  concluded  that 
I  would  never  speak  again.  However,  after  about  a 
fortnight,  the  lost  faculty  came  back,  to  my  mother's 
inexpressible  joy. 

Winter  was  nearing  its  end  when  one  morning  in  late 
July  I  ventured  out  of  doors  for  the  first  time,  though 
still  but  a  skeleton,  a  shadow  of  my  former  self.  It 
was  a  windy  day  of  brilliant  sunshine,  a  day  I  shall 
never  forget,  and  the  effect  of  the  air  and  the  sun 
and  smell  of  earth  and  early  flowers,  and  the  sounds 
of  wild  birds,  with  the  sight  of  the  intensely  green 
young  grass  and  the  vast  crystal  dome  of  heaven  above, 
was  like  deep  draughts  of  some  potent  liquor  that  made 
the  blood  dance  in  my  veins.  Oh  what  an  inexpressible, 
immeasurable  joy  to  be  alive  and  not  dead,  to  have 
my  feet  still  on  the  earth,  and  drink  in  the  wind  and 


292  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

sunshine  once  more!  But  the  pleasure  was  more  than 
I  could  endure  in  that  feeble  state;  the  chilly  wind 
pierced  me  like  needles  of  ice,  my  senses  swam,  and  I 
would  have  fallen  to  the  ground  if  my  elder  brother 
had  not  caught  me  in  his  arms  and  taken  me  back  to 
the  house. 

In  spite  of  that  fainting  fit  I  was  happy  again  with 
the  old  happiness,  and  from  day  to  day  I  regained 
strength,  until  one  day  in  early  August  I  was  suddenly 
reminded  that  it  was  my  anniversary  by  my  brothers 
and  sisters  all  coming  to  me  with  birthday  presents, 
which  they  had  been  careful  to  provide  beforehand, 
and  congratulations  on  my  recovery. 

Fifteen  years  old!  This  was  indeed  the  most  memor- 
able day  of  my  life,  for  on  that  evening  I  began  to 
think  about  myself,  and  my  thoughts  were  strange  and 
unhappy  thoughts  to  me — what  I  was,  what  I  was  in 
the  world  for,  what  I  wanted,  what  destiny  was  going 
to  make  of  me!  Or  was  it  for  me  to  do  just  what  I 
wished,  to  shape  my  own  destiny,  as  my  elder  brothers 
had  done?  It  was  the  first  time  such  questions  had 
come  to  me,  and  I  was  startled  at  them.  It  was  as 
though  I  had  only  just  become  conscious;  I  doubt  that 
I  had  ever  been  fully  conscious  jDefore.  I  had  lived 
till  now  in  a  paradise  of  vivid  sense-impressions  in 
which  all  thoughts  came  to  me  saturated  with  emotion, 
and  in  that  mental  state  reflection  is  well-nigh  impos- 
sible. Even  the  idea  of  death,  which  had  come  as  a 
surprise,  had  not  made  me  reflect.  Death  was  a 
person,  a  monstrous  being  who  had  sprung  upon  me 
in  my  flowery  paradise  and  had  inflicted  a  wound  with 
a  poisoned  dagger  in  my  flesh.    Then  had  come  the 


BOYHOOD'S  END 


293 


knowledge  of  immortality  for  the  soul,  and  the  wound 
was  healed,  or  partly  so,  for  a  time  at  all  events;  after 
which  the  one  thought  that  seriously  troubled  me  was 
that  I  could  not  always  remain  a  boy.  To  pass  from 
boyhood  to  manhood  was  not  so  bad  as  dying;  never- 
theless it  was  a  change  painful  to  contemplate.  That 
everlasting  delight  and  wonder,  rising  to  rapture,  which 
was  in  the  child  and  boy  would  wither  away  and  vanish, 
and  in  its  place  there  would  be  that  dull  low  kind  of 
satisfaction  which  men  have  in  the  set  task,  the  daily 
and  hourly  intercourse  with  others  of  a  like  condition, 
and  in  eating  and  drinking  and  sleeping.  I  could  not, 
for  example,  think  of  so  advanced  an  age  as  fifteen 
without  the  keenest  apprehension.  And  now  I  was 
actually  at  that  age — at  that  parting  of  the  ways,  as  it 
seemed  to  me. 

What,  then,  did  I  want? — what  did  I  ask  to  have? 
If  the  question  had  been  put  to  me  then,  and  if  I  had 
been  capable  of  expressing  what  was  in  me,  I  should 
have  replied :  I  want  only  to  keep  what  I  have ;  to  rise 
each  morning  and  look  out  on  the  sky  and  the  grassy 
dew-wet  earth  from  day  to  day,  from  year  to  year. 
To  watch  every  June  and  July  for  spring,  to  feel  the 
same  old  sweet  surprise  and  delight  at  the  appearance 
of  each  familiar  flower,  every  new-born  insect,  every 
bird  returned  once  more  from  the  north.  To  listen 
in  a  trance  of  delight  to  the  wild  notes  of  the  golden 
plover  coming  once  more  to  the  great  plain,  flying, 
flying  south,  flock  succeeding  flock  the  whole  day  long. 
Oh,  those  wild  beautiful  cries  of  the  golden  plover! 
I  could  exclaim  with  Hafiz,  with  but  one  word  changed : 
'Tf  after  a  thousand  years  that  sound  should  float 


294  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

o'er  my  tomb,  my  bones  uprising  in  their  gladness 
would  dance  in  the  sepulchre!''  To  climb  trees  and 
put  my  hand  down  in  the  deep  hot  nest  of  the  Bien- 
te-veo  and  feel  the  hot  eggs — the  five  long  pointed 
cream-coloured  eggs  with  chocolate  spots  and  splashes 
at  the  larger  end.  To  lie  on  a  grassy  bank  with  the 
blue  water  between  me  and  beds  of  tall  bulrushes,  listen- 
ing to  the  mysterious  sounds  of  the  wind  and  of  hidden 
rails  and  coots  and  courlans  conversing  together  in 
strange  human-like  tones;  to  let  my  sight  dwell  and 
feast  on  the  camalote  flower  amid  its  floating  masses 
of  moist  vivid  green  leaves — the  large  alamanda-like 
flower  of  a  purest  divine  yellow  that  when  plucked 
sheds  its  lovely  petals,  to  leave  you  with  nothing  but  a 
green  stem  in  your  hand.  To  ride  at  noon  on  the 
hottest  days,  when  the  whole  earth  is  a-glitter  with 
illusory  water,  and  see  the  cattle  and  horses  in  thou- 
sands, covering  the  plain  at  their  watering-places;  to 
visit  some  haunt  of  large  birds  at  that  still,  hot  hour 
and  see  storks,  ibises,  grey  herons,  egrets  of  a  dazzling 
whiteness,  and  rose-coloured  spoonbills  and  flamingoes, 
standing  in  the  shallow  water  in  which  their  motion- 
less forms  are  reflected.  To  lie  on  my  back  on  the 
rust-brown  grass  in  January  and  gaze  up  at  the  wide 
hot  whitey-blue  sky,  peopled  with  millions  and  myriads 
of  glistening  balls  of  thistle-down,  ever,  ever  floating 
by;  to  gaze  and  gaze  until  they  are  to  me  living  things 
and  I,  in  an  ecstasy,  am  with  them,  floating  in  that 
immense  shining  void! 

And  now  it  seemed  that  I  was  about  to  lose  it — this 
glad  emotion  which  had  made  the  world  what  it  was  to 
me,  an  enchanted  realm,  a  nature  at  once  natural  and 


BOYHOOD'S  END  295 

supernatural;  it  would  fade  and  lessen  imperceptibly 
day  by  day,  year  by  year,  as  I  became  more  and  more 
absorbed  in  the  dull  business  of  life,  until  it  would 
be  lost  as  effectually  as  if  I  had  ceased  to  see  and  hear 
and  palpitate,  and  my  warm  body  had  grown  cold  and 
stiff  in  death,  and,  like  the  dead  and  the  living,  I  should 
be  unconscious  of  my  loss. 

It  was  not  a  unique  nor  a  singular  feeling:  it  is 
known  to  other  boys,  as  I  have  read  and  heard;  also  I 
have  occasionally  met  with  one  who,  in  a  rare  moment 
of  confidence,  has  confessed  that  he  has  been  troubled 
at  times  at  the  thought  of  all  he  would  lose.  But  I 
doubt  that  it  was  ever  more  keenly  felt  than  in  my 
case;  I  doubt,  too,  that  it  is  common  or  strong  in 
English  boys,  considering  the  conditions  in  which  they 
exist.  For  restraint  is  irksome  to  all  beings,  from  a 
black-beetle  or  an  earthworm  to  an  eagle,  or,  to  go 
higher  still  in  the  scale,  to  an  orang-u-tan  or  a  man; 
it  is  felt  most  keenly  by  the  young,  in  our  species  at 
all  events,  and  the  British  boy  suffers  the  greatest  re- 
straint during  the  period  when  the  call  of  nature,  the 
instincts  of  play  and  adventure,  are  most  urgent.  Natu- 
rally, he  looks  eagerly  forward  to  the  time  of  escape, 
which  he  fondly  imagines  will  be  when  his  boyhood  is 
over  and  he  is  free  of  masters. 

To  come  back  to  my  own  case :  I  did  not  and  could 
not  know  that  it  was  an  exceptional  case,  that  my  feel- 
ing for  nature  was  something  more  than  the  sense  of 
pleasure  in  sun  and  rain  and  wind  and  earth  and  water 
and  in  liberty  of  motion,  which  is  universal  in  children, 
but  was  in  part  due  to  a  faculty  which  is  not  universal 
or  common.    The  fear,  then,  was  an  idle  one,  but  I 


296  FAR  A'WAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

had  good  reason  for  it  when  I  considered  how  it 
had  been  with  my  elder  brothers,  who  had  been  as 
Httle  restrained  as  myself,  especially  that  masterful 
adventurous  one,  now  in  a  distant  country  thousands 
of  miles  from  home,  who,  at  about  the  age  at  which  I 
had  now  arrived,  had  made  himself  his  own  master,  to 
do  what  he  liked  with  his  own  life.  I  had  seen  him  at 
his  parting  of  the  ways,  how  resolutely  he  had  aban- 
doned his  open-air  habits,  everything  in  fact  that  had 
been  his  delight,  to  settle  down  to  sheer  hard  mental 
work,  and  this  at  our  home  on  the  pampas  where  there 
were  no  masters,  and  even  the  books  and  instruments 
required  for  his  studies  could  only  be  procured  with 
great  difficulty  and  after  long  delays.  I  remember  one 
afternoon  when  we  were  gathered  in  the  dining-room 
for  tea,  he  was  reading,  and  my  mother  coming  in 
looked  over  his  shoulder  and  said,  *'You  are  reading 
a  novel:  don't  you  think  all  that  romantic  stuff  will 
take  your  mind  off  your  studies?" 

Now  he'll  flare  up,  said  I  to  myself ;  he's  so  con- 
foundedly independent  and  touchy  no  one  can  say  a 
word  to  him.  It  surprised  me  when  he  answered 
quietly,  ''Yes,  mother,  I  know,  but  I  must  finish  this 
book  now;  it  will  be  the  last  novel  I  shall  read  for 
some  years."    And  so  it  was,  I  believe. 

His  resolution  impressed  us  even  more  in  another 
matter.  He  had  an  extraordinary  talent  for  inventing 
stories,  mostly  of  wars  and  wild  adventures  with  plenty 
of  fighting  in  them,  and  whenever  we  boys  were  all 
together,  which  was  usually  after  we  had  gone  to  bed 
and  put  the  candle  out,  he  would  begin  one  of  his 


BOYHOOD'S  END  297 


wonderful  tales  and  go  on  for  hours,  we  all  wide  awake, 
listening  in  breathless  silence.  At  length  towards  mid- 
nighi  the  flow  of  the  narrative  would  suddenly  stop, 
and  after  an  interval  we  would  all  begin  to  cry  out  to 
him  to  go  on.  ''Oh,  you  are  awake!''  he  would  ex- 
claim, with  a  chuckle  of  laughter.  "Very  well,  then, 
you  know  just  where  we  are  in  our  history,  to  be  re- 
sumed another  day.  Now  you  can  go  to  sleep.''  On 
the  following  evening  he  would  take  up  the  tale,  which 
would  often  last  an  entire  week,  to  be  followed  by 
another  just  as  long,  then  another,  and  so  on — our 
thousand  and  one  nights.  And  this  delightful  yarn- 
spinning  was  also  dropped  as  he  became  more  and  more 
absorbed  in  his  mathematical  and  other  studies. 

To  this  day  I  can  recall  portions  of  those  tales, 
especially  those  in  which  birds  and  beasts  instead  of 
men  were  the  actors,  and  so  much  did  we  miss  them 
that  sometimes  when  we  were  all  assembled  of  an 
afternoon  we  would  start  begging  him  for  a  story — 
''just  one  more,  and  the  longer  the  better,"  we  would 
say  to  tempt  him.  And  he,  a  little  flattered  at  our  keen 
appreciation  of  his  talent  as  a  yarn-spinner,  would 
appear  inclined  to  yield.  ''Well,  now,  what  story  shall 
I  tell  you?"  he  would  say;  and  then,  just  when  we 
were  settling  down  to  listen,  he  would  shout,  "No,  no, 
no  more  stories,"  and  to  put  the  matter  from  him  he 
would  snatch  up  a  book  and  order  us  to  hold  our 
tongues  or  clear  out  of  the  room! 

It  was  not  for  me  to  follow  his  lead;  I  had  not  the 
intellect  or  strength  of  will  for  such  tasks,  and  not 
only  on  that  memorable  evening  of  my  anniversary, 
but  for  days  afterwards  I  continued  in  a  troubled  state 


298  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

of  mind,  ashamed  of  my  ignorance,  my  indolence,  my 
disinclination  to  any  kind  of  mental  work — ashamed 
even  to  think  that  my  delight  in  nature  and  wish  for 
no  other  thing  in  life  was  merely  due  to  the  fact  that 
while  the  others  were  putting  away  childish  things  as 
they  grew  up,  I  alone  refused  to  part  with  them. 

The  result  of  all  these  deliberations  was  that  I  tem- 
porized: I  would  not,  I  could  not,  give  up  the  rides 
and  rambles  that  took  up  most  of  my  time,  but  I  would 
try  to  overcome  my  disinclination  to  serious  reading. 
There  were  plenty  of  books  in  the  house — it  was  always 
a  puzzle  to  me  how  we  came  to  have  so  many.  I  was 
familiar  with  their  appearance  on  the  shelves — they 
had  been  before  me  since  I  first  opened  my  eyes — 
their  shape,  size,  colour,  even  their  titles,  and  that  was 
all  I  knew  about  them.  A  general  Natural  History 
and  two  little  works  by  James  Rennie  on  the  habits 
and  faculties  of  birds  was  all  the  literature  suited  to 
my  wants  in  the  entire  collection  of  three  or  four  hun- 
dred volumes.  For  the  rest,  I  had  read  a  few  story- 
books and  novels:  but  we  had  no  novels;  when  one 
came  into  the  house  it  would  be  read  and  lent  to  our 
next  neighbour  five  or  six  miles  away,  and  he  in  turn 
would  lend  to  another,  twenty  miles  further  on,  and 
so  on  until  it  disappeared  in  space. 

I  made  a  beginning  with  Rollin's  Ancient  History  in 
two  huge  quarto  volumes;  I  fancy  it  was  the  large 
clear  type  and  numerous  plates  which  illustrated  it  that 
determined  my  choice.  Rollin,  the  good  old  priest, 
opened  a  new  wonderful  world  to  me,  and  instead  of 
the  tedious  task  I  had  feared  the  reading  would  prove, 
it  was  as  delightful  as  it  had  formerly  been  to  listen 


BOYHOOD'S  END  299 

to  my  brother's  endless  histories  of  imaginary  heroes 
and  their  wars  and  adventures. 

Still  athirst  for  history,  after  finishing  Rollin  I 
began  fingering  other  works  of  that  kind :  there  was 
Whiston's  Josephns,  too  ponderous  a  book  to  be  held 
in  the  hands  when  read  out  of  doors;  and  there  was 
Gibbon  in  six  stately  volumes.  I  was  not  yet  able  to 
appreciate  the  lofty  artificial  style,  and  soon  fell  on 
something  better  suited  to  my  boyish  taste  in  letters — 
a  History  of  Christianity  in,  I  think,  sixteen  or  eighteen 
volumes  of  a  convenient  size.  The  simple  natural  dic- 
tion attracted  me,  and  I  was  soon  convinced  that  I  could 
not  have  stumbled  on  more  fascinating  reading  than 
the  lives  of  the  Fathers  of  the  Church  included  in  some 
of  the  earlier  volumes,  especially  that  of  Augustine,  the 
greatest  of  all:  how  beautiful  and  marvellous  his  life 
was,  and  his  mother  Monica's!  what  wonderful  books 
he  wrote! — his  Confessions  and  City  of  God  from  which 
long  excerpts  were  given  in  this  volume. 

These  biographies  sent  me  to  another  old  book,  Leland 
on  Revelation,  which  told  me  much  I  was  curious  to 
know  about  the  mythologies  and  systems  of  philosophy 
of  the  ancients — the  innumerable  false  cults  which  had 
flourished  in  a  darkened  world  before  the  dawn  of 
the  true  religion. 

Next  came  Carlyle's  French  Revolution  and  at  last 
Gibbon,  and  I  was  still  deep  in  the  Decline  and  Fall 
when  disaster  came  to  us:  my  father  was  practically 
ruined,  owing,  as  I  have  said  in  a  former  chapter,  to 
his  childlike  trust  in  his  fellow-men,  and  we  quitted 
the  home  he  had  counted  as  a  permanent  one,  which  in 
due  time  would  have  become  his  property  had  he  but 


300  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

made  his  position  secure  by  a  proper  deed  on  first  con- 
senting to  take  over  the  place  in  its  then  ruinous  con- 
dition. 

Thus  ended,  sadly  enough,  the  enchanting  years  of 
my  boyhood;  and  here,  too,  the  book  should  finish: 
but  having  gone  so  far,  I  will  venture  a  little  further 
and  give  a  brief  account  of  what  followed  and  the  life 
which,  for  several  succeeding  years,  was  to  be  mine — 
the  life,  that  is  to  say,  of  the  mind  and  spirit. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 


A  Darkened  Life 

A  severe  illness — Case  pronounced  hopeless — How  it  affected 
me — Religious  doubts  and  a  mind  distressed — Lawless 
thoughts — Conversation  with  an  old  gaucho  about 
religion — George  Combe  and  the  desire  for  immortality. 

After  we  had  gone  back  impoverished  to  our  old 
home  where  I  first  saw  the  Hght — which  was  still  my 
father's  property  and  all  he  had  left — I  continued  my 
reading,  and  was  so  taken  up  with  the  affairs  of  the 
universe,  seen  and  unseen,  that  I  did  not  feel  the 
change  in  our  position  and  comforts  too  greatly.  I 
took  my  share  in  the  rough  work  and  was  much  out- 
of-doors  on  horseback  looking  after  the  animals,  and 
not  unhappy.  I  was  already  very  tall  and  thin  at  that 
time,  in  my  sixteenth  year,  still  growing  rapidly,  and 
though  athletic,  it  was  probable  that  some  weakness 
had  been  left  in  me  by  the  fever.  At  all  events,  I  had 
scarcely  settled  down  to  the  new  way  of  life  before  a 
fresh  blow  fell  upon  me,  a  malady  which,  though  it 
failed  to  kill  me,  yet  made  shipwreck  of  all  my  new- 
born earthly  hopes  and  dreams,  and  a  dismal  failure 
of  my  after  life. 

One  day  I  undertook,  unaided,  to  drive  home  a  small 
troop  of  cattle  we  had  purchased  at  a  distance  of  a  good 

301 


302  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

many  leagues,  and  was  in  the  saddle  from  morning 
till  after  dark  in  a  continuous  flooding  rain  and  violent 
wind.  The  wind  was  against  me,  and  the  beasts  were 
incessantly  trying  to  turn  and  rush  back  to  the  place 
they  had  been  taken  from,  and  the  fight  with  wind  and 
cattle  went  wearily  on,  the  driving' rain  gradually  soak- 
ing through  my  woollen  poncho,  then  through  my 
clothes  to  my  skin,  and  trickling  down  until  my  long 
boots  were  full  and  slopping  over  at  the  knees.  For 
the  last  half  of  that  midwinter  day  my  feet  and  legs 
were  devoid  of  feeling.  The  result  of  it  was  rheumatic 
fever  and  years  of  bad  health,  with  constant  attacks  of 
acute  pain  and  violent  palpitation  of  the  heart  which 
would  last  for  hours  at  a  stretch.  From  time  to  time 
I  was  sent  or  taken  to  consult  a  doctor  in  the  city, 
and  in  that  way  from  first  to  last  I  was  in  the  hands  of 
pretty  well  all  the  English  doctors  in  the  place,  but 
they  did  me  no  permanent  good,  nor  did  they  say  any- 
thing to  give  me  a  hope  of  complete  recovery.  Eventu- 
ally we  were  told  that  it  was  a  practically  hopeless 
case,  that  I  had  ''outgrown  my  strength,''  and  had  a 
permanently  bad  heart  and  might  drop  down  at  any 
moment. 

Naturally  this  pronouncement  had  a  most  disastrous 
effect  on  me.  That  their  diagnosis  proved  in  the  end 
to  be  wrong  mattered  nothing,  since  the  injury  had 
been  done  and  could  not  be  undone  if  I  lived  a  cen- 
tury. For  the  blow  had  fallen  at  the  most  critical 
period  in  life,  the  period  of  transition  when  the  newly- 
awakened  mind  is  in  its  freshest,  most  receptive  stage, 
and  is  most  curious,  most  eager,  when  knowledge  is 
most  readily  assimilated,  and,  above  everything,  when 


A  DARKENED  LIFE  303 

the  foundations  of  character  and  the  entire  life  of  the 
man  are  laid. 

I  speak,  it  will  be  understood,  of  a  mind  that  had 
not  been  trained  or  pressed  into  a  mould  or  groove  by 
schoolmasters  and  schools — of  a  mind  that  was  a  forest 
wilding  rather  than  a  plant,  one  in  ten  thousand  like 
it,  grown  under  glass  in  a  prepared  soil,  in  a  nursery. 

That  I  had  to  say  good-bye  to  all  thoughts  of  a 
career,  all  bright  dreams  of  the  future  which  recent 
readings  had  put  into  my  mind,  was  not  felt  as  the 
chief  loss,  it  was  in  fact  a  small  matter  compared  with 
the  dreadful  thought  that  I  must  soon  resign  this 
earthly  life  which  was  so  much  more  to  me,  as  I  could 
not  help  thinking,  than  to  most  others.  I  was  like 
that  young  man  with  a  ghastly  face  I  had  seen  bound 
to  a  post  in  our  barn;  or  like  any  wretched  captive, 
tied  hand  and  foot  and  left  to  lie  there  until  it  suited  his 
captor  to  come  back  and  cut  his  throat  or  thrust  him 
through  with  a  spear,  or  cut  him  into  strips  with  a 
sword,  in  a  leisurely  manner  so  as  to  get  all  the  satis- 
faction possible  out  of  the  exercise  of  his  skill  and  the 
spectacle  of  gushing  blood  and  his  victim's  agony. 

Nor  was  this  all  nor  even  the  worst  which  had  be- 
fallen me;  I  now  discovered  that  in  spite  of  all  my 
strivings  after  the  religious  mind,  that  old  dread  of 
annihilation  which  I  had  first  experienced  as  a  small 
child  was  not  dead  as  I  had  fondly  imagined,  but  still 
lived  and  worked  in  me.  This  visible  world — this 
paradise  of  which  I  had  had  so  far  but  a  fleeting 
glimpse — the  sun  and  moon  and  other  worlds  peopling 
all  space  with  their  brilliant  constellations,  and  still 
other  suns  and  systems,  so  utterly  remote,  in  such  in- 


304  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

conceivable  numbers  as  to  appear  to  our  vision  as  a 
faint  luminous  mist  in  the  sky — all  this  universe  which 
had  existed  for  millions  and  billions  of  ages,  or  from 
eternity,  would  have  existed  in  vain,  since  now  it  was 
doomed  with  my  last  breath,  my  last  gleam  of  con- 
sciousness, to  come  to  nothing.  For  that  was  how  the 
thought  of  death  presented  itself  to  me. 

Against  this  appalling  thought  I  struggled  with  all 
my  power,  and  prayed  and  prayed  again,  morning,  noon 
and  night,  wrestling  with  God,  as  the  phrase  was,  trying 
as  it  were  to  wring  something  from  His  hands  which 
would  save  me,  and  which  He,  for  no  reason  that  I 
could  discover,  withheld  from  me. 

It  was  not  strange  in  these  circumstances  that  I  be- 
came more  and  more  absorbed  in  the  religious  literature 
of  which  we  had  a  good  amount  on  our  bookshelves — 
theology,  sermons,  meditations  for  every  day  in  the 
year,  The  Whole  Duty  of  Man.,  A  Call  to  the  Uncon- 
verted,  and  many  other  old  works  of  a  similar  character. 

Among  these  I  found  one  entitled,  if  I  remember 
rightly,  An  Answer  to  the  Infidel,  and  this  work,  which 
I  took  up  eagerly  in  the  expectation  that  it  would  allay 
those  maddening  doubts  perpetually  rising  in  my  mind 
and  be  a  help  and  comfort  to  me,  only  served  to  make 
matters  worse,  at  all  events  for  a  time.  For  in  this 
book  I  was  first  made  acquainted  with  many  of  the 
arguments  of  the  freethinkers,  both  of  the  Deists  who 
were  opposed  to  the  Christian  creed,  and  of  those  who 
denied  the  truth  of  all  supernatural  religion.  And  the 
answers  to  the  arguments  were  not  always  convincing. 
It  was  idle,  then,  to  seek  for  proofs  in  the  books.  The 
books  themselves,  after  all  their  arguments,  told  me  as 


A  DARKENED  LIFE  305 

much  when  they  said  that  only  by  faith  could  a 
man  be  saved.  And  to  the  sad  question :  "How  was 
it  to  be  attained?"  the  only  answer  was,  by  striving 
and  striving  until  it  came.  And  as  there  was  nothing 
else  to  do  I  continued  striving,  with  the  result  that  I 
believed  and  did  not  believe,  and  my  soul,  or  rather 
my  hope  of  immortality,  trembled  in  the  balance. 

This,  from  first  to  last,  was  the  one  thing  that  mat- 
tered; so  much  was  it  to  me  that  in  reading  one  of 
the  religious  books  entitled  The  Saints'  Everlasting  Rest, 
in  which  the  pious  author,  Richard  Baxter,  expatiates 
on  and  labours  to  make  his  readers  realize  the  condition 
of  the  eternally  damned,  I  have  said  to  myself :  *Tf 
an  angel,  or  one  returned  from  the  dead,  could  come 
to  assure  me  that  life  does  not  end  with  death,  that 
we  mortals  are  destined  to  live  for  ever,  but  that  for 
me  there  can  be  no  blessed  hereafter  on  account  of 
my  want  of  faith,  and  because  I  loved  or  worshipped 
Nature  rather  than  the  Author  of  my  being,  it  would 
be,  not  a  message  of  despair,  but  of  consolation;  for 
in  that  dreadful  place  to  which  I  should  be  sent,  I  should 
be  alive  and  not  dead,  and  have  my  memories  of  earth, 
and  perhaps  meet  and  have  communion  there  with 
others  of  like  mind  with  myself,  and  with  recollections 
like  mine." 

This  was  but  one  of  many  lawless  thoughts  which 
assailed  me  at  this  time.  Another,  very  persistent, 
was  the  view  I  took  of  the  sufferings  of  the  Saviour  of 
mankind.  Why,  I  asked,  were  they  made  so  much  of? 
— why  was  it  said  that  He  suffered  as  no  man  had 
suffered?  It  was  nothing  but  the  physical  pain  which 
thousands  and  millions  have  had  to  endure!    And  if 


3o6  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

I  could  be  as  sure  of  immortality  as  Jesus,  death  would 
be  to  me  no  more  than  the  prick  of  a  thorn.  What 
would  it  matter  to  be  nailed  to  a  cross  and  perish  in  a 
slow  agony  if  I  believed  that,  the  agony  over,  I  should 
sit  down  refreshed  to  sup  in  paradise?  The  worst  of 
it  was  that  when  I  tried  to  banish  these  bitter,  rebellious 
ideas,  taking  them  to  be  the  whisperings  of  the  Evil 
One,  as  the  books  taught,  the  quick  reply  would  come 
that  the  supposed  Evil  One  was  nothing  but  the  voice 
of  my  own  reason  striving  to  make  itself  heard. 

But  the  contest  could  not  be  abandoned;  devil  or 
reason,  or  whatever  it  was,  must  be  overcome,  else 
there  was  no  hope  for  me;  and  such  is  the  powerful 
effect  of  fixing  all  one's  thoughts  on  one  object,  assisted 
no  doubt  by  the  reflex  effect  on  the  mind  of  prayer, 
that  in  due  time  I  did  succeed  in  making  myself  be- 
lieve all  I  wished  to  believe,  and  had  my  reward,  since 
after  many  days  or  weeks  of  mental  misery  there  would 
come  beautiful  intervals  of  peace  and  of  more  than 
peace,  a  new  and  surprising  experience,  a  state  of  exal- 
tation, when  it  would  seem  to  me  that  I  was  lifted  or 
translated  into  a  purely  spiritual  atmosphere  and  was 
in  communion  and  one  with  the  unseen  world. 

It  was  wonderful.  At  last  and  for  ever  my  Dark 
Night  of  the  Soul  was  over;  no  more  bitter  broodings 
and  mocking  whispers  and  shrinkings  from  the  awful 
phantom  of  death  continually  hovering  near  me;  and, 
above  all,  no  more  "difficulties'' — the  rocky  barriers 
I  had  vainly  beat  and  bruised  myself  against.  For  I 
had  been  miraculously  lifted  over  them  and  set  safely 
down  on  the  other  side,  where  it  was  all  plain  walking. 

Unhappily,  these  blissful  intervals  would  not  last 


A  DARKENED  LIFE  307 

long.  A  recollection  of  something  I  had  heard  or  read 
would  come  back  to  startle  me  out  of  the  confident 
happy  mood;  reason  would  revive  as  from  a  benumbed 
or  hypnotized  condition,  and  the  mocking  voice  would 
be  heard  telling  me  that  I  had  been  under  a  delusion. 
Once  more  I  would  abhor  and  shudder  at  the  black 
phantom,  and  when  the  thought  of  annihilation  was 
most  insistent,  I  would  often  recall  the  bitter,  poignant 
words  about  death  and  immortality  spoken  to  me  about 
two  years  before  by  an  old  gaucho  landowner  who  had 
been  our  neighbour  in  my  former  home. 

He  was  a  rough,  rather  stern-looking  man,  with  a 
mass  of  silver-white  hair  and  grey  eyes;  a  gaucho'  in 
his  dress  and  primitive  way  of  life,  the  owner  of  a 
little  land  and  a  few  animals — the  small  remnant  of  the 
estancia  which  had  once  belonged  to  his  people.  But 
he  was  a  vigorous  old  man,  who  spent  half  of  his  day 
on  horseback,  looking  after  the  animals,  his  only  living. 
One  day  he  was  at  our  house,  and  coming  out  to  where 
I  was  doing  something  in  the  grounds,  he  sat  down  on 
a  bench  and  called  me  to  him.  I  went  gladly  enough, 
thinking  that  he  had  some  interesting  bird  news  to  give 
me.  He  remained  silent  for  some  time,  smoking  a 
cigar,  and  staring  at  the  sky  as  if  watching  the  smoke 
vanish  in  the  air.    At  length  he  opened  fire. 

*Took,''  he  said,  '^you  are  only  a  boy,  but  you  can 
tell  me  something  I  don't  know.  Your  parents  read 
books,  and  you  listen  to  their  conversation  and  learn 
things.  We  are  Roman  Catholics,  and  you  are  Pro- 
testants. We  call  you  heretics  and  say  that  for  such 
there  is  no  salvation.  Now  I  want  you  to  tell  me  what 
is  the  difference  between  our  religion  and  yours." 


3o8  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

I  explained  the  matter  as  well  as  I  knew  how,  and 
added,  somewhat  maliciously,  that  the  main  difference 
was  his  religion  was  a  corrupt  form  of  Christianity  and 
ours  a  pure  one. 

This  had  no  ef¥ect  on  him;  he  went  on  smoking 
and  staring  at  the  sky  as  if  he  hadn't  heard  me.  Then 
he  began  again :  ''Now  I  know.  These  differences 
are  nothing  to  me,  and  though  I  was  curious  to  know 
what  they  were,  they  are  not  worth  talking  about, 
because,  as  I  know,  all  religions  are  false." 

''What  did  he  mean — how  did  he  know?''  I  asked, 
very  much  surprised. 

"The  priests  tell  us,''  he  replied,  "that  we  must 
believe  and  live  a  religious  life  in  this  world  to  be 
saved.  Your  priests  tell  you  the  same,  and  as  there  is 
no  other  world  and  we  have  no  souls,  all  they  say  must 
be  false.  You  see  all  this  with  your  eyes,"  he  con- 
tinued, waving  his  hands  to  indicate  the  whole  visible 
world.  "And  when  you  shut  them  or  go  blind  you 
see  no  more.  It  is  the  same  with  our  brains.  We 
think  of  a  thousand  things  and  remember,  and  when 
the  brain  decays  we  forget  everything,  and  we  die,  and 
everything  dies  with  us.  Have  not  the  cattle  eyes  to 
see  and  brains  to  think  and  remember  too?  And 
when  they  die  no  priest  tells  us  that  they  have  a  soul 
and  have  to  go  to  purgatory,  or  wherever  he  likes  to 
send  them.  Now,  in  return  for  what  you  told  me,  I've 
told  you  something  you  didn't  know." 

It  came  as  a  great  shock  to  me  to  hear  this.  Hitherto 
I  had  thought  that  what  was  wrong  with  our  native 
friends  was  that  they  believed  too  much,  and  this  man 
— this  good  honest  old  gaucho  we  all  respected — be- 


A  DARKENED  LIFE  309 

lieved  nothing!  I  tried  to  argue  with  him  and  told 
him  he  had  said  a  dreadful  thing,  since  every  one  knew 
in  his  heart  that  he  had  an  immortal  soul  and  had  to 
be  judged  after  death.  He  had  distressed  and  even 
frightened  me,  but  he  went  on  calmly  smoking  and 
appeared  not  to  be  listening  to  me,  and  as  he  refused 
to  speak  I  at  last  burst  out:  "How  do  you  know? 
Why  do  you  say  you  know?" 

At  last  he  spoke.  "Listen.  I  was  once  a  boy  too, 
and  I  know  that  a  boy  of  fourteen  can  understand 
things  as  well  as  a  man.  I  was  an  only  child,  and  my 
mother  was  a  widow,  and  I  was  more  than  all  the 
world  to  her,  and  she  was  more  than  everything  else 
to  me.  We  were  alone  together  in  the  world — we  two. 
Then  she  died,  and  what  her  loss  was  to  me — how 
can  I  say  it? — how  could  you  understand?  And  after 
she  was  taken  away  and  buried,  I  said :  ^She  is  not 
dead,  and  wherever  she  now  is,  in  heaven  or  in  purga- 
tory, or  in  the  sun,  she  will  remember  and  come  to 
me  and  comfort  me.'  When  it  was  dark  I  went  out 
alone  and  sat  at  the  end  of  the  house,  and  spent  hours 
waiting  for  her.  'She  will  surely  come,'  I  said,  'but  I 
don't  know  whether  I  shall  see  her  or  not.  Perhaps 
it  will  be  just  a  whisper  in  my  ear,  perhaps  a  touch  of 
her  hand  on  mine,  but  I  shall  know  that  she  is  with 
me.'  And  at  last,  worn  out  with  waiting  and  watching, 
I  went  to  my  bed  and  said  she  will  come  to-morrow. 
And  the  next  night  and  the  next  it  was  the  same. 
Sometimes  I  would  go  up  the  ladder,  always  standing 
against  the  gable  so  that  one  could  go  up,  and  stand- 
ing on  the  roof,  look  out  over  the  plain  and  see  where 
our  horses  were  grazing.    There  I  would  sit  or  lie 


310  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

on  the  thatch  for  hours.  And  I  would  cry:  'Come 
to  me,  my  mother !  I  cannot  live  without  you !  Come 
soon — come  soon,  before  I  die  of  a  broken  heart!' 
That  was  my  cry  every  night,  until  worn  out  with 
my  vigil  I  would  go  back  to  my  room.  And  she  never 
came,  and  at  last  I  knew  that  she  was  dead  and 
that  we  were  separated  for  ever — ^that  there  is  no  life 
after  death.'' 

His  story  pierced  me  to  the  heart,  and  without  an- 
other word  I  left  him,  but  I  succeeded  in  making 
myself  believe  that  grief  for  his  mother  had  made  him 
mad,  that  as  a  boy  he  had  got  these  delusions  in  his 
mind  and  had  kept  them  all  his  life.  Now  this  recol- 
lection haunted  me.  Then  one  day,  with  my  mind 
in  this  troubled  state,  in  reading  George  Combe's 
Physiology  I  came  on  a  passage  in  which  the  ques- 
tion of  the  desire  for  immortality  is  discussed,  his 
contention  being  that  it  is  not  universal,  and  as  a 
proof  of  this  he  affirms  that  he  himself  had  no  such 
desire. 

This  came  as  a  great  shock  to  me,  since  up  to  the 
moment  of  reading  it  I  had  in  my  ignorance  taken  It 
for  granted  that  the  desire  is  inherent  in  every  human 
being  from  the  dawn  of  consciousness  to  the  end  of 
life,  that  it  is  our  chief  desire,  and  is  an  instinct  of  the 
soul  like  that  physical  instinct  of  the  migratory  bird 
which  calls  it  annually  from  the  most  distant  regions 
back  to  its  natal  home.  I  had  also  taken  it  for  granted 
that  our  hope  of  immortality,  or  rather  our  belief  in  it, 
was  founded  on  this  same  passion  in  us  and  in  its  uni- 
versality.   The  fact  that  there  were  those  who  had  no 


A  DARKENED  LIFE  311 

such  desire  was  sufficient  to  show  that  it  was  no  spiritual 
instinct  or  not  of  divine  origin. 

There  were  many  more  shocks  of  this  kind — when 
I  go  back  in  memory  to  that  sad  time,  it  seems  almost 
incredible  to  me  that  that  poor  doubtful  faith  in  re- 
vealed religion  still  survived,  and  that  the  struggle  still 
went  on,  but  go  on  it  certainly  did. 

To  many  of  my  readers,  to  all  who  have  interested 
themselves  in  the  history  of  religion  and  its  effect  on 
individual  minds — its  psychology — all  I  have  written 
concerning  my  mental  condition  at  that  period,  will 
come  as  a  twice-told  tale,  since  thousands  and  millions 
of  men  have  undergone  similar  experiences  and  have 
related  them  in  numberless  books.  And  here  I  must 
beg  my  reader  to  bear  in  mind  that  in  the  days  of  my 
youth  we  had  not  yet  fallen  into  the  indifference  and 
scepticism  which  now  infects  the  entire  Christian  world. 
In  those  days  people  still  believed ;  and  here  in  England, 
in  the  very  centre  and  mind  of  the  world,  many  thou- 
sands of  miles  from  my  rude  wilderness,  the  champions 
of  the  Church  were  in  deadly  conflict  with  the  Evolu- 
tionists. I  knew  nothing  about  all  that:  I  had  no 
modern  books — those  we  had  were  mostly  about  a 
hundred  years  old.  My  fight  up  to  this  period  was 
all  on  the  old  lines,  and  on  this  account  I  have  related 
it  as  briefly  as  possible;  but  it  had  to  be  told,  since  it 
comes  into  the  story  of  the  development  of  my  mind 
at  that  period.  I  have  no  doubt  that  my  sufferings 
through  these  religious  experiences  were  far  greater 
than  in  the  majority  of  cases,  and  this  for  the  special 
reason  which  I  have  already  intimated. 


CHAPTER  XXIV 
Loss  and  Gain 

The  soul's  loneliness — My  mother  and  her  death — mother's 
love  for  her  son — Her  character — ^Anecdotes — A  mystery 
and  a  revelation — The  autumnal  migration  of  birds — 
Moonlight  vigils — My  absent  brother's  return — He 
introduces  me  to  Darwin's  works — A  new  philosophy 
of  life — Conclusion. 

The  mournful  truth  that  a  man — every  man — must  die 
alone,  had  been  thrust  sharply  into  my  mind  and  kept 
there  by  the  frequent  violent  attacks  of  my  malady 
I  suffered  at  that  time,  every  one  of  which  threatened 
to  be  the  last.  And  this  sense  and  apprehension  of 
loneliness  at  the  moment  of  the  severance  of  all  earthly 
ties  and  parting  with  Hght  and  life,  was  perhaps  the 
cause  of  the  idea  or  notion  which  possessed  me,  that 
in  all  our  most  intimate  thoughts  and  reflections  con- 
cerning our  destiny  and  our  deepest  emotions,  we  are 
and  must  be  alone.  Anyhow,  in  so  far  as  these  mat- 
ters are  concerned,  I  never  had  nor  desired  a  confidant. 
In  this  connection  I  recall  the  last  words  spoken  to  me 
by  my  younger  brother,  the  being  I  loved  best  on  earth 
at  that  time  and  the  one  I  had  been  more  intimate 
with  than  with  any  other  person  I  have  ever  known. 
This  was  after  the  dark  days  and  years  had  been 
overpast,  when  I  had  had  long  periods  of  fairly  good 

312 


LOSS  AND  GAIN 


313 


health  and  had  known  happiness  in  the  solitary  places 
I  loved  to  haunt,  communing  with  wild  nature,  with 
wild  birds  for  company. 

He  was  with  me  in  the  ship  in  which  I  had  taken 
my  passage  ''home,''  as  I  insisted  on  calling  England, 
to  his  amusement,  and  when  we  had  grasped  hands  for 
the  last  time  and  had  said  our  last  good-bye,  he  added 
this  one  more  last  word :  ''Of  all  the  people  I  have 
ever  known  you  are  the  only  one  I  don't  know." 

It  was  a  word,  I  imagine,  never  spoken  by  a  mother 
of  a  loved  son,  her  insight,  born  of  her  exceeding  love, 
being  so  much  greater  than  that  of  the  closest  friend 
and  brother.  I  never  breathed  a  word  of  my  doubts 
and  mental  agonizings  to  my  mother;  I  spoke  to  her 
only  of  my  bodily  sufferings;  yet  she  knew  it  all,  and 
I  knew  that  she  knew.  And  because  she  knew  and 
understood  the  temper  of  my  mind  as  well,  she  never 
questioned,  never  probed,  but  invariably  when  alone 
with  me  she  would  with  infinite  tenderness  in  her  man- 
ner touch  on  spiritual  things  and  tell  me  of  her  own 
state,  the  consolations  of  her  faith  which  gave  her  peace 
and  strength  in  all  our  reverses  and  anxieties. 

I  knew,  too,  that  her  concern  at  my  state  was  the 
greater  because  it  was  not  her  first  experience  of  a  trou- 
ble of  this  kind.  My  elder  long-absent  brother  had 
scarcely  ceased  to  be  a  boy  before  throwing  off  all  belief 
in  the  Christian  creed  and  congratulating  himself  on  hav- 
ing got  rid  of  old  wives'  fables,  as  he  scornfully  ex- 
pressed it.  But  never  a  word  did  he  say  to  her  of  this 
change,  and  without  a  word  she  knew  it,  and  when  she 
spoke  to  us  on  the  subject  nearest  to  her  heart  and  he 
^istened  in  respectful  silence,  she  knew  the  thought  and 


314  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

feeling  that  was  in  him — that  he  loved  her  above  every- 
body but  was  free  of  her  creed. 

He  had  been  able  to  cast  it  off  with  a  light  heart 
because  of  his  perfect  health,  since  in  that  condition 
death  is  not  in  the  mind — the  mind  refuses  to  admit 
the  thought  of  it,  so  remote  is  it  in  that  state  that  we 
regard  ourselves  as  practically  immortal.  And,  un- 
troubled by  that  thought,  the  mind  is  clear  and  vigorous 
and  unfettered.  What,  I  have  asked  myself,  even 
when  striving  after  faith,  would  faith  in  another  world 
have  mattered  to  me  if  I  had  not  been  suddenly 
sentenced  to  an  early  death,  when  the  whole  desire 
of  my  soul  was  life,  nothing  but  life — to  Hve  for 
ever! 

Then  my  mother  died.  Her  perfect  health  failed 
her  suddenly,  and  her  decline  was  not  long.  But  she 
suffered  much,  and  on  the  last  occasion  of  my  being 
with  her  at  her  bedside  she  told  me  that  she  was  very 
tired  and  had  no  fear  of  death,  and  would  be  glad  to 
go  but  for  the  thought  of  leaving  me  in  such  a  pre- 
carious state  of  health  and  with  a  mind  distressed. 
Even  then  she  put  no  questions  to  me,  but  only  ex- 
pressed the  hope  that  her  prayers  for  me  would  be 
answered  and  that  at  the  last  we  should  be  together 
again. 

I  cannot  say,  as  I  might  say  in  the  case  of  any  other 
relation  or  friend,  that  I  had  lost  her.  A  mother's 
love  for  the  child  of  her  body  differs  essentially  from 
all  other  affections,  and  burns  with  so  clear  and  steady 
a  flame  that  it  appears  like  the  one  unchangeable  thing 
in  this  earthly  mutable  life,  so  that  when  she  is  no 


LOSS  AND  GAIN  315 

longer  present  it  is  still  a  light  to  our  steps  and  a 
consolation. 

It  came  to  me  as  a  great  surprise  a  few  years  ago 
to  have  my  secret  and  most  cherished  feelings  about 
my  own  mother  expressed  to  me  as  I  had  never  heard 
them  expressed  before  by  a  friend  who,  albeit  still 
young,  has  made  himself  a  name  in  the  world,  one 
who  had  never  known  a  mother,  she  having  died  dur- 
ing his  infancy.  He  lamented  that  it  had  been  so, 
not  only  on  account  of  the  motherless  childhood  and 
boyhood  he  had  known,  but  chiefly  because  in  after 
life  it  was  borne  in  on  him  that  he  had  been  deprived  of 
something  infinitely  precious  which  others  have — the 
enduring  and  sustaining  memory  of  a  love  which  is 
unlike  any  other  love  known  to  mortals,  and  is  almost 
a  sense  and  prescience  of  immortality. 

In  reading,  nothing  goes  to  my  heart  like  any  true 
account  of  a  mother  and  son's  love  for  one  another, 
such  as  we  find  in  that  true  book  I  have  already  spoken 
of  in  a  former  chapter,  Serge  AksakofiPs  History  of 
my  Childhood.  Of  other  books  I  may  cite  Leigh 
Hunt's  Autobiography  in  the  early  chapters.  Reading 
the  incidents  he  records  of  his  mother's  love  and  pity 
for  all  in  trouble  and  her  self-sacrificing  acts,  I  have 
exclaimed:  ^'How  like  my  mother!  It  is  just  how 
she  would  have  acted!"  I  will  give  an  instance  here 
of  her  loving-kindness. 

Some  days  after  her  death  I  had  occasion  to  go  to 
the  house  of  one  of  our  native  neighbours — the  humble 
rancho  of  poor  people.  It  was  not  in  my  mind  at  the 
moment  that  I  had  not  seen  these  people  since  my 
mother  died,  and  on  coming  into  the  living-room  the 


3i6  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

old  mother  of  the  family,  who  had  grandchildren  of 
my  age,  rose  from  her  seat  with  tottering  steps  to  meet 
me,  and  taking  my  hand  in  hers,  with  tears  streaming 
from  her  eyes,  cried :  *'She  has  left  us !  She  who 
called  me  mother  on  account  of  my  years  and  her 
loving  heart.  It  was  she  who  was  my  mother  and  the 
mother  of  us  all.    What  shall  we  do  without  her?" 

Only  after  going  out  and  getting  on  my  horse  it 
occurred  to  me  that  the  old  woman's  memory  went 
back  to  the  time  when  she  first  knew  my  mother,  a 
girl-wife,  many  years  before  I  was  born.  She  could 
remember  numerous  acts  of  love  and  compassion:  that 
when  one  of  her  daughters  died  in  childbirth  in  that 
very  house,  my  mother,  who  was  just  then  nursing 
me,  went  to  give  them  whatever  aid  and  comfort  she 
could,  and  finding  the  child  alive,  took  it  home  and 
nursed  it,  with  me,  at  her  own  breasts  for  several  days 
until  a  nurse  was  found. 

From  the  time  when  I  began  to  think  for  myself  I 
used  to  wonder  at  her  tolerance ;  for  she  was  a  saint  in 
her  life,  spiritually-minded  in  the  highest  degree.  To 
her,  a  child  of  New  England  parents  and  ancestors, 
reared  in  an  intensely  religious  atmosphere,  the  people 
of  the  pampas  among  whom  her  lot  was  cast  must  have 
appeared  almost  like  the  inhabitants  of  another  world. 
They  were  as  strange  to  her  soul,  morally  and  spirit- 
ually, as  they  were  unlike  her  own  people  outwardly 
in  language,  dress,  and  customs.  Yet  she  was  able  to 
affiliate  with  them,  to  visit  and  sit  at  ease  with  them  in 
their  lowliest  ranchos,  interesting  herself  as  much  in 
their  affairs  as  if  she  belonged  to  them.  This  sympathy 
and  freedom  endeared  her  to  them,  and  it  was  a  grief 


LOSS  AND  GAIN  317 

to  some  who  were  much  attached  to  her  that  she  was 
not  of  their  faith.  She  was  a  Protestant,  and  what 
that  exactly  meant  they  didn't  know,  but  they  supposed 
it  was  something  very  bad.  Protestants,  some  of  them 
held,  had  been  concerned  in  the  crucifixion  of  the 
Saviour;  at  all  events,  they  would  not  go  to  mass  or 
confessional,  and  despised  the  saints,  those  glorified 
beings  who,  under  the  Queen  of  Heaven,  and  with 
the  angels,  were  the  guardians  of  Christian  souls  in 
this  life  and  their  intercessors  in  the  next.  They  were 
anxious  to  save  her,  and  when  I  was  born,  the  same 
old  dame  I  have  told  about  a  page  or  two  back,  find- 
ing that  I  had  come  into  the  world  on  St.  Dominic's 
Day,  set  herself  to  persuade  my  mother  to  name  me 
after  that  saint,  that  being  the  religious  custom  of  the 
country.  For  if  they  should  succeed  in  this  it  would 
be  taken  as  a  sign  of  grace,  that  she  was  not  a  despiser 
of  the  saints  and  her  case  hopeless.  But  my  mother 
had  already  fixed  on  a  name  for  me  and  would  not 
change  it  for  another,  even  to  please  her  poor  neigh- 
bours— certainly  not  for  such  a  name  as  Dominic;  per- 
haps there  is  not  one  in  the  calendar  more  obnoxious 
to  heretics  of  all  denominations. 

They  were  much  hurt — it  was  the  only  hurt  she  ever 
caused  them — and  the  old  dame  and  some  of  her  people, 
who  had  thought  the  scheme  too  good  to  be  dropped 
altogether,  insisted  always  on  calling  me  Dominic! 

My  mother's  sympathy  and  love  for  everybody  ap- 
peared, too,  in  the  hospitality  she  delighted  to  exercise. 
That,  indeed,  was  the  common  virtue  of  the  country, 
especially  in  the  native  population;  but  from  all  my 
experience  during  my  wanderings  on  these  great  plains 


3i8  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

in  subsequent  years,  when  every  night  would  find  me 
a  guest  in  a  different  establishment,  I  never  saw  any- 
thing quite  on  a  par  with  my  parents'  hospitality. 
Nothing  seemed  to  make  them  happier  than  having 
strangers  and  travellers  taking  their  rest  with  us;  there 
were  also  a  good  number  of  persons  who  were  accus- 
tomed to  make  periodical  visits  to  the  city  from  the 
southern  part  of  the  province  who,  after  a  night  with 
us,  with  perhaps  half  a  day's  rest  to  follow,  would  make 
our  house  a  regular  resting-place.  But  no  distinctions 
were  made.  The  poorest,  even  men  who  would  be 
labelled  tramps  in  England,  travellers  on  foot  perhaps 
where  cattle  made  it  dangerous  to  be  on  foot,  would 
be  made  as  welcome  as  those  of  a  better  class.  Our 
delight  as  children,  loving  fun  too  well,  was  when  we 
had  a  guest  of  this  humble  description  at  the  supper- 
table.  Settling  down  in  our  places  at  the  long  table 
laden  with  good  things,  a  stern  admonitory  glance 
from  our  father  would  let  us  into  the  secret  of  the  new 
guest's  status — his  unsuitability  to  his  surroundings. 
It  was  great  fun  to  watch  him  furtively  and  listen  to 
his  blundering  conversational  efforts,  but  we  knew  that 
the  least  sound  of  a  titter  on  our  part  would  have 
been  an  unpardonable  offence.  The  poor  and  more 
uncouth,  or  ridiculous,  from  our  childish  point  of  view, 
they  appeared,  the  more  anxious  my  mother  would  be 
to  put  them  at  their  ease.  And  she  would  sometimes 
say  to  us  afterwards  that  she  could  not  laugh  with  us 
because  she  remembered  the  poor  fellow  probably  had 
a  mother  somewhere  in  a  distant  country  who  was 
perhaps  thinking  of  him  at  the  very  time  he  was  at  the 
table  with  us,  and  hoping  and  praying  that  in  his  wan- 


LOSS  AND  GAIN  319 

derings  he  would  meet  with  some  who  would  be  kind 
to  him. 

I  remember  many  of  these  chance  guests,  and  will 
give  a  particular  account  of  one — the  guest  and  the 
evening  we  passed  in  his  company — as  this  survives 
with  a  peculiar  freshness  in  my  memory,  and  it  was 
also  a  cherished  recollection  of  my  mother's. 

I  was  then  nine  or  ten  years  old,  and  our  guest  was 
a  young  Spanish  gentleman,  singularly  handsome,  with 
a  most  engaging  expression  and  manner.  He  was  on  a 
journey  from  Buenos  Ay  res  to  a  part  in  our  province 
some  sixty  or  seventy  leagues  further  south,  and  after 
asking  permission  to  pass  the  night  at  our  house,  he 
explained  that  he  had  only  one  horse,  as  he  liked  that 
way  of  travelling  rather  than  the  native  way  of  driving 
a  tropilla  before  him,  going  at  a  furious  gallop  from 
dawn  to  dark,  and  changing  horses  every  three  or  four 
leagues.  Having  but  one  horse,  he  had  to  go  in  a 
leisurely  way  with  many  rests,  and  he  liked  to  call  at 
many  houses  every  day  just  to  talk  with  the  people. 

After  supper,  during  which  he  charmed  us  with  his 
conversation  and  pure  Castilian,  which  was  like  music 
as  he  spoke  it,  we  formed  a  circle  before  a  wood  fire 
in  the  dining-room  and  made  him  take  the  middle  seat. 
For  he  had  confessed  that  he  performed  on  the  guitar, 
and  we  all  wanted  to  sit  where  we  could  see  as  well  as 
listen.  He  tuned  the  instrument  in  a  leisurely  way, 
pausing  often  to  continue  the  conversation  with  my 
parents,  until  at  last,  seeing  how  eager  we  all  were,  he 
began  to  play,  and  his  music  and  style  were  strange  to 
us,  for  he  had  no  jigging  tunes  with  fantastic  flights 


320  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

and  flourishes  so  much  afifected  by  our  native  guitarists. 
It  was  beautiful  but  serious  music. 

Then  came  another  long  pause  and  he  talked  again, 
and  said  the  pieces  he  had  been  playing  were  composed 
by  his  chief  favourite,  Sarasate.  He  said  that  Sarasate 
had  been  one  of  the  most  famous  guitarists  in  Spain, 
and  had  composed  a  good  deal  of  music  for  the  guitar 
before  he  had  given  it  up  for  the  violin.  As  a  violinist 
he  would  win  a  European  reputation,  but  in  Spain 
they  were  sorry  that  he  had  abandoned  the  national 
instrument. 

All  he  said  was  interesting,  but  we  wanted  more  and 
more  of  his  music,  and  he  played  less  and  less  and  at 
longer  intervals,  and  at  last  he  put  the  guitar  down, 
and  turning  to  my  parents,  said  with  a  smile  that  he 
begged  to  be  excused — that  he  could  play  no  more  for 
thinking.  He  owed  it  to  them,  he  said,  to  tell  them 
what  he  was  thinking  about;  they  would  then  know 
how  much  they  had  done  for  his  pleasure  that  evening 
and  how  he  appreciated  it.  He  was,  he  continued, 
one  of  a  large  family,  very  united,  all  living  with  their 
parents  at  home;  and  in  winter,  which  was  cold  in  his 
part  of  Spain,  their  happiest  time  was  in  the  evening 
when  they  would  gather  before  a  big  fire  of  oak  logs 
in  their  sala  and  pass  the  time  with  books  and  con- 
versation and  a  little  music  and  singing.  Naturally, 
since  he  had  left  his  country  years  ago,  the  thought  of 
that  time  and  those  evenings  had  occasionally  been  in 
his  mind — a  passing  thought  and  memory.  On  this 
evening  it  had  come  in  a  different  way,  less  like  a 
memory  than  a  revival  of  the  past,  so  that  as  he  sat 
there  among  us,  he  was  a  boy  back  in  Spain  once  more. 


LOSS  AND  GAIN 


321 


sitting  by  the  fire  with  his  brothers  and  sisters  and 
parents.  With  that  feeling  in  him  he  could  not  go  on 
playing.  And  he  thought  it  most  strange  that  such  an 
experience  should  have  come  to  him  for  the  first  time 
in  that  place  out  on  that  great  naked  pampa,  sparsely 
inhabited,  where  Hfe  was  so  rough,  so  primitive. 

And  while  he  talked  we  all  listened — how  eagerly! 
— drinking  in  his  words,  especially  •  my  mother,  her 
eyes  bright  with  the  moisture  rising  in  them;  and  she 
often  afterwards  recalled  that  evening  guest,  who  was 
seen  no  more  by  us  but  had  left  an  enduring  image  in 
our  hearts. 

This  is  a  picture  of  my  mother  as  she  appeared  to 
all  who  knew  her.  In  my  individual  case  there  was 
more,  a  secret  bond  of  union  between  us,  since  she 
best  understood  my  feeling  for  Nature  and  sense  of 
beauty,  and  recognized  that  in  this  I  was  nearest  to  her. 
Thus,  besides  and  above  the  love  of  mother  and  son, 
we  had  a  spiritual  kinship,  and  this  was  so  much  to  me 
that  everything  beautiful  in  sight  or  sound  that  af¥ected 
me  came  associated  with  her  to  my  mind.  I  have 
found  this  feeling  most  perfectly  expressed  in  some 
lines  to  the  Snowdrop  by  our  lost  poet,  Dolben.  I  am 
in  doubt,  he  wrote, 

If  summer  brings  a  flower  so  lovable 
Of  such  a  meditative  restfulness 
As  this,  with  all  her  roses  and  carnations. 
The  morning  hardly  stirs  their  noiseless  bells; 
Yet  could  I  fancy  that  they  whispered  "Homc,*^ 
For  all  things  gentle,  all  things  beautiful, 
I  hold,  my  mother,  for  a  part  of  thee. 


322  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

So  have  I  held.  All  things  beautiful,  but  chiefly 
flowers.  Her  feeling  for  them  was  little  short  of  adora- 
tion. Her  religious  mind  appeared  to  regard  them  as 
little  voiceless  messengers  from  the  Author  of  our 
beings  and  of  Nature,  or  as  divine  symbols  of  a  place 
and  a  beauty  beyond  our  power  to  imagine. 

I  think  it  likely  that  when  Dolben  penned  those  lines 
to  the  Snowdrop  it  was  in  his  mind  that  this  was  one 
of  his  mother's  favourites.  My  mother  had  her  fa- 
vourites too  ;  not  the  roses  and  carnations  in  our  gar- 
dens, but  mostly  among  the  wild  flowers  growing  on 
the  pampas — flowers  which  I  never  see  in  England. 
But  I  remember  them,  and  if  by  some  strange  chance 
I  should  find  myself  once  more  in  that  distant  region, 
I  should  go  out  in  search  of  them,  and  seeing  them 
again,  feel  that  I  was  communing  with  her  spirit. 

These  memories  of  my  mother  are  a  relief  to  me  in 
recalling  that  melancholy  time,  the  years  of  my  youth 
that  were  wasted  and  worse,  considering  their  efifect 
and  that  the  very  thought  of  that  period,  which  is  to 
others  the  fullest,  richest,  and  happiest  in  life,  has 
always  been  painful  to  me.  Yet  to  it  I  am  now  obliged 
to  return  for  the  space  of  two  or  three  pages  to  relate 
how  I  eventually  came  out  of  it. 

My  case  was  not  precisely  like  that  of  Cowper's 
Castaway,  but  rather  like  that  of  a  fugitive  from  his 
ship  on  some  tropical  coast  who,  on  swimming  to  the 
shore,  finds  himself  in  a  mangrove  swamp,  waist-deep 
in  mire,  tangled  in  rope-like  roots,  straining  frantically 
to  escape  his  doom. 

I  have  told  how  after  my  fifteenth  anniversary,  when 


LOSS  AND  GAIN  323 

I  first  began  to  reflect  seriously  on  my  future  life,  the 
idea  still  persisted  that  my  perpetual  delight  in  Nature 
was  nothing  more  than  a  condition  or  phase  of  my 
child's  and  boy's  mind,  and  would  inevitably  fade  out 
in  time.  I  might  have  guessed  at  an  earlier  date  that 
this  was  a  delusion,  since  the  feeling  had  grown  in 
strength  with  the  years,  but  it  was  only  after  I  took  to 
reading  at  the  beginning  of  my  sixteenth  year  that  I 
discovered  its  true  character.  One  of  the  books  I  read 
then  for  the  first  time  was  White's  Selborne,  given 
to  me  by  an  old  friend  of  our  family,  a  merchant  in 
Buenos  Ayres,  who  had  been  accustomed  to  stay  a 
week  or  two  with  us  once  a  year  when  he  took  his 
holiday.  He  had  been  on  a  visit  to  Europe,  and  one 
day,  he  told  me,  when  in  London  on  the  eve  of  his 
departure,  he  was  in  a  bookshop,  and  seeing  this  book 
on  the  counter  and  glancing  at  a  page  or  two,  it  oc- 
curred to  him  that  it  was  just  the  right  thing  to  get 
for  that  bird-loving  boy  out  on  the  pampas.  I  read 
and  re-read  it  many  times,  for  nothing  so  good  of  its 
kind  had  ever  come  to  me,  but  it  did  not  reveal  to  me 
the  secret  of  my  own  feeling  for  Nature — the  feeling 
of  which  I  was  becoming  more  and  more  conscious, 
which  was  a  mystery  to  me,  especially  at  certain  mo- 
ments, when  it  would  come  upon  me  with  a  sudden 
rush.  So  powerful  it  was,  so  unaccountable,  I  was 
actually  afraid  of  it,  yet  I  would  go  out  of  my  way  to 
seek  it.  At  the  hour  of  sunset  I  would  go  out  half  a 
mile  or  so  from  the  house,  and  sitting  on  the  dry  grass 
with  hands  clasped  round  my  knees,  gaze  at  the  western 
sky,  waiting  for  it  to  take  me.  And  I  would  ask  my- 
self:   What  does  it  mean?    But  there  was  no  answer 


324  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

to  that  in  any  book  concerning  the  *'life  and  con- 
versation of  animals/'  I  found  it  in  other  works:  in 
Brown's  Philosophy — another  of  the  ancient  tomes  on 
our  shelves — and  in  an  old  volume  containing  appre- 
ciations of  the  early  nineteenth-century  poets;  also  in 
other  works.  They  did  not  tell  me  in  so  many  words 
that  it  was  the  mystical  faculty  in  me  which  produced 
those  strange  rushes  or  bursts  of  feeling  and  lifted  me 
out  of  myself  at  moments;  but  what  I  found  in  their 
words  was  sufficient  to  show  me  that  the  feeling  of 
delight  in  Nature  was  an  enduring  one,  that  others 
had  known  it,  and  that  it  had  been  a  secret  source 
of  happiness  throughout  their  lives. 

This  revelation,  which  in  other  circumstances  would 
have  made  me  exceedingly  happy,  only  added  to  my 
misery  when,  as  it  appeared,  I  had  only  a  short  time  to 
live.  Nature  could  charm,  she  could  enchant  me,  and 
her  wordless  messages  to  my  soul  were  to  me  sweeter 
than  honey  and  the  honeycomb,  but  she  could  not  take 
the  sting  and  victory  from  death,  and  I  had  perforce 
to  go  elsewhere  for  consolation.  Yet  even  so,  in  my 
worst  days,  my  darkest  years,  when  occupied  with  the 
laborious  business  of  working  out  my  own  salvation 
with  fear  and  trembling,  with  that  spectre  of  death 
always  following  me,  even  so  I  could  not  rid  my  mind 
of  its  old  passion  and  delight  The  rising  and  setting 
sun,  the  sight  of  a  lucid  blue  sky  after  cloud  and  rain, 
the  long  unheard  familiar  call-note  of  some  newly- 
returned  migrant,  the  first  sight  of  some  flower  in 
spring,  would  bring  back  the  old  emotion  and  would 
be  like  a  sudden  ray  of  sunlight  in  a  dark  place — a 
momentary  intense  joy,  to  be  succeeded  by  ineffable 


LOSS  AND  GAIN  325 

pain.  Then  there  were  times  when  these  two  opposite 
feehngs  mingled  and  would  be  together  in  my  mind 
for  hours  at  a  time,  and  this  occurred  oftenest  during 
the  autumnal  migration,  when  the  great  wave  of  bird- 
life  set  northwards,  and  all  through  March  and  April 
the  birds  were  visible  in  flock  succeeding  flock  from 
dawn  to  dark,  until  the  summer  visitants  were  all  gone, 
to  be  succeeded  in  May  by  the  birds  from  the  far 
south,  flying  from  the  antarctic  winter. 

This  annual  spectacle  had  always  been  a  moving 
one,  but  the  feeling  it  now  produced — this  mingled 
feeling — was  most  powerful  on  still  moonlight  nights, 
when  I  would  sit  or  lie  on  my  bed  gazing  out  on  the 
prospect,  earth  and  sky,  in  its  changed  mysterious 
aspect.  And,  lying  there,  I  would  listen  by  the  hour 
to  the  three-syllable  call-note  of  the  upland  or  solitary 
plover,  as  the  birds  went  past,  each  bird  alone  far  up 
in  the  dim  sky,  winging  his  way  to  the  north.  It  was 
a  strange  vigil  I  kept,  stirred  by  strange  thoughts  and 
feelings,  in  that  moonlit  earth  that  was  strange  too, 
albeit  familiar,  for  never  before  had  the  sense  of  the 
supernatural  in  Nature  been  stronger.  And  the  bird 
I  listened  to,  that  same  solitary  plover  I  had  knovv^n 
and  admired  from  my  earliest  years,  the  most  graceful 
of  birds,  beautiful  to  see  and  hear  when  it  would  spring 
up  before  my  horse  with  its  prolonged  wild  bubbling 
cry  of  alarm  and  go  away  with  swift,  swallow-like 
flight — what  intensity  and  gladness  of  life  was  in  it, 
what  a  wonderful  inherited  knowledge  in  its  brain,  and 
what  an  inexhaustible  vigour  in  its  slender  frame  to 
enable  it  to  perform  that  annual  double  journey  of  up- 
wards of  ten  thousand  miles!    What  a  joy  it  would  be 


326  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

to  live  for  ages  in  a  world  of  such  fascinating  phe- 
nomena! If  some  great  physician,  wise  beyond  all 
others,  infallible,  had  said  to  me  that  all  my  doctors 
had  been  wrong,  that,  barring  accidents,  I  had  yet  fifty 
years  to  live,  or  forty,  or  even  thirty,  I  should  have 
worshipped  him  and  would  have  counted  myself  the 
happiest  being  on  the  globe,  with  so  many  autumns 
and  winters  and  springs  and  summers  to  see  yet. 

With  these  supernatural  moonlight  nights  I  finish 
the  story  of  that  dark  time,  albeit  the  darkness  had  not 
yet  gone;  to  have  recalled  it  and  related  it  briefly  as  I 
could  once  in  my  life  is  enough.  Let  me  now  go  back 
to  the  simile  of  the  lost  wretch  struggling  for  life  in  the 
mangrove  swamp.  The  first  sense  of  having  set  my 
foot  on  a  firmer  place  in  that  slough  of  fetid  slime,  of 
a  wholesome  breath  of  air  blown  to  me  from  outside 
the  shadow  of  the  black  abhorred  forest,  was  when  I 
began  to  experience  intervals  of  relief  from  physical 
pain,  when  these  grew  more  and  more  frequent  and 
would  extend  to  entire  days,  then  to  weeks,  and  for  a 
time  I  would  become  oblivious  of  my  precarious  state. 
I  was  still  and  for  a  long  time  subject  to  attacks,  when 
the  pain  was  intolerable  and  was  like  steel  driven  into 
my  heart,  always  followed  by  violent  palpitations, 
which  would  last  for  hours.  But  I  found  that  exercise 
on  foot  or  horseback  made  me  no  worse,  and  I  became 
more  and  more  venturesome,  spending  most  of  my 
time  out  of  doors,  although  often  troubled  with  the 
thought  that  my  passion  for  Nature  was  a  hindrance  to 
me,  a  turning  aside  from  the  difficult  way  I  had  been 
striving  to  keep. 

Then  my  elder  brother  returned,  an  event  of  the 


LOSS  AND  GAIN 


327 


greatest  importance  in.  my  life;  and  as  he  had  not 
been  expected  so  soon,  I  was  for  a  minute  in  doubt 
that  this  strange  visitor  could  be  my  brother,  so  greatly 
had  he  altered  in  appearance  in  those  five  long  years 
of  absence,  which  had  seemed  like  an  age  to  me.  He 
had  left  us  as  a  smooth-faced  youth,  with  skin  tanned 
to  such  a  deep  colour  that  with  his  dark  piercing  eyes 
and  long  black  hair  he  had  looked  to  me  more  like  an 
Indian  than  a  white  man.  Now  his  skin  was  white, 
and  he  had  grown  a  brown  beard  and  moustache.  In 
disposition,  too,  he  had  grown  more  genial  and  tolerant, 
but  I  soon  discovered  that  in  character  he  had  not 
changed. 

As  soon  as  an  opportunity  came  he  began  to  inter- 
rogate and  cross-question  me  as  to  my  mind — life  and 
where  I  stood,  and  expressed  himself  surprised  to  hear 
that  I  still  held  to  the  creed  in  which  we  had  been 
reared.  How,  he  demanded,  did  I  reconcile  these 
ancient  fabulous  notions  with  the  doctrine  of  evolution? 
What  ef¥ect  had  Darwin  produced  on  me?  I  had  to 
confess  that  I  had  not  read  a  line  of  his  work,  that 
with  the  exception  of  Draper's  History  of  Civilization, 
which  had  come  by  chance  in  my  way,  I  had  during  all 
those  five  years  read  nothing  but  the  old  books  which 
had  always  been  on  our  shelves.  He  said  he  knew 
Draper's  History,  and  it  was  not  the  sort  of  book  for 
me  to  read  at  present.  I  wanted  a  dififerent  history, 
with  animals  as  well  as  men  in  it.  He  had  a  store  of 
books  with  him,  and  would  lend  me  the  Origin  of 
Species  to  begin  with. 

When  I  had  read  and  returned  the  book,  and  he 
was  eager  to  hear  my  opinion,  I  said  it  had  not  hurt 


328  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

me  in  the  least,  since  Darwin  had  to  my  mind  only 
succeeded  in  disproving  his  own  theory  with  his  argu- 
ment from  artificial  selection.  He  himself  confessed 
that  no  new  species  had  ever  been  produced  in  that 
way. 

That,  he  said  in  reply,  was  the  easy  criticism  that 
any  one  who  came  to  the  reading  in  a  hostile  spirit 
would  make.  They  would  fasten  on  that  apparently 
weak  point  and  not  pay  much  attention  to  the  fact  that 
it  is  fairly  met  and  answered  in  the  book.  When  he 
first  read  the  book  it  convinced  him;  but  he  had  come 
to  it  with  an  open  mind  and  I  with  a  prejudiced  mind 
on  account  of  my  religious  ideas.  He  advised  me  to 
read  it  again,  to  read  and  consider  it  carefully  with  the 
sole  purpose  of  getting  at  the  truth.  *'Take  it,"  he 
said,  '*and  read  it  again  in  the  right  way  for  you  to 
read  it — as  a  naturalist." 

He  had  been  surprised  that  I,  an  ignorant  boy  or 
youth  on  the  pampas,  had  ventured  to  criticise  such  a 
work.  I,  on  my  side,  had  been  equally  surprised  at 
his  quiet  way  of  reasoning  with  me,  with  none  of  the 
old  scornful  spirit  flaming  out.  He  was  gentle  with 
me,  knowing  that  I  had  suffered  much  and  was  not 
free  yet. 

I  read  it  again  in  the  way  he  had  counselled,  and 
then  refused  to  think  any  more  on  the  subject.  I  was 
sick  of  thinking.  Like  the  wretch  who  long  has  tossed 
upon  the  thorny  bed  of  pain,  I  only  wanted  to  repair 
my  vigour  lost  and  breathe  and  walk  again.  To  be  on 
horseback,  galloping  over  the  green  pampas,  in  sun  and 
wind.  For  after  all  it  was  only  a  reprieve,  not  a  com- 
mutation of  sentence — though  one  of  a  kind  unknown 


LOSS  AND  GAIN 


in  the  Courts,  in  which  the  condemned  man  is  allowed 
out  on  bail.  My  pardon  was  not  received  until  a  few 
years  later.  I  returned  with  a  new  wonderful  zest  to 
my  old  sports,  shooting  and  fishing,  and  would  spend 
days  and  weeks  from  home,  sometimes  staying  with 
old  gaucho  friends  and  former  neighbours  at  their 
ranchos,  attending  cattle-markings  and  partings,  dances, 
and  other  gatherings,  and  also  made  longer  expeditions 
to  the  southern  and  western  frontiers  of  the  province, 
living  out  of  doors  for  months  at  a  time. 

Despite  my  determination  to  put  the  question  off, 
my  mind,  or  sub-conscious  mind,  like  a  dog  with  a 
bone  which  it  refuses  to  drop  in  defiance  of  its  master's 
command,  went  on  revolving  it.  It  went  to  bed  and 
got  up  with  me,  and  was  with  me  the  day  long,  and 
whenever  I  had  a  still  interval,  when  I  would  pull  up 
my  horse  to  sit  motionless  watching  some  creature, 
bird  or  beast  or  snake,  or  sat  on  the  ground  poring 
over  some  insect  occupied  with  the  business  of  its  little 
life,  I  would  become  conscious  of  the  discussion  and 
argument  going  on.  And  every  creature  I  watched, 
from  the  great  soaring  bird  circling  in  the  sky  at  a  vast 
altitude  to  the  little  life  at  my  feet,  was  brought  into 
the  argument,  and  was  a  type,  representing  a  group 
marked  by  a  family  likeness  not  only  in  figure  and 
colouring  and  language,  but  in  mind  as  well,  in  habits 
and  the  most  trivial  traits  and  tricks  of  gesture  and  so 
on;  the  entire  group  in  its  turn  related  to  another 
group,  and  to  others,  still  further  and  further  away, 
the  likeness  growing  less  and  less.  What  explanation 
was  possible  but  that  of  community  of  descent?  How 
incredible  it  appeared  that  this  had  not  been  seen  years 


330  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

ago — yes,  even  before  it  was  discovered  that  the  world 
was  round  and  was  one  of  a  system  of  planets  revolving 
round  the  sun.  All  this  starry  knowledge  was  of  little 
or  no  importance  compared  to  that  of  our  relationship 
with  all  the  infinitely  various  forms  of  life  that  share 
the  earth  with  us.  Yet  it  was  not  till  the  second  half 
of  the  nineteenth  century  that  this  great,  almost  self- 
evident  truth  had  won  a  hearing  in  the  world ! 

No  doubt  this  is  a  common  experience :  no  sooner 
has  the  inquirer  been  driven  to  accept  a  new  doctrine 
than  it  takes  complete  possession  of  his  mind,  and  has 
not  then  the  appearance  of  a  strange  and  unwelcome 
guest,  but  rather  that  of  a  familiar  friendly  one,  and 
is  like  a  long-established  housemate.  I  suppose  the 
explanation  is  that  when  we  throw  open  the  doors  to 
the  new  importunate  visitor,  it  is  virtually  a  ceremony, 
since  the  real  event  has  been  already  accomplished, 
the  guest  having  stolen  in  by  some  other  way  and 
made  himself  at  home  in  the  sub-conscious  mind. 
Insensibly  and  inevitably  I  had  become  an  evolutionist, 
albeit  never  wholly  satisfied  with  natural  selection  as 
the  only  and  sufficient  explanation  of  the  change  in 
the  forms  of  life.  And  again,  insensibly  and  inevitably, 
the  new  doctrine  has  led  to  modifications  of  the  old 
religious  ideas  and  eventually  to  a  new  and  simplified 
philosophy  of  life.  A  good  enough  one  so  far  as  this 
life  is  concerned,  but  unhappily  it  takes  no  account 
of  another,  a  second  and  perdurable  life  without  change 
of  personality. 

This  subject  has  been  much  in  men's  minds  during 
the  past  two  or  three  dreadful  years,  often  reminding 
me  of  that  shock  I  received  as  a  boy  of  fourteen  at 


LOSS  AND  GAIN 


331 


the  old  gaucho's  bitter  story  of  his  soul;  I  have  also 
again  been  reminded  of  the  theory  in  which  that 
younger  and  greatly-loved  brother  of  mine  was  able 
to  find  comfort.  He  had  become  deeply  religious, 
and  after  much  reading  in  Herbert  Spencer  and  other 
modern  philosophers  and  evolutionists,  he  told  me  he 
thought  it  was  idle  for  Christians  to  fight  against  the 
argument  of  the  materialists  that  the  mind  is  a  func- 
tion of  the  brain.  Undoubtedly  it  was  that,  and  our 
mental  faculties  perished  with  the  brain;  but  we  had 
a  soul  that  was  imperishable  as  well.  He  knew  it, 
which  meant  that  he  too  was  a  mystic,  and  being 
wholly  preoccupied  with  religion,  his  mystical  faculty 
found  its  use  and  exercise  there.  At  all  events,  his 
notion  served  to  lift  him  over  his  difficulties  and  to 
get  him  out  of  his  mangrove  swamp — a  way  perhaps 
less  impossible  than  the  one  recently  pointed  out  by 
William  James. 

Thus  I  came  out  of  the  contest  a  loser,  but  as  a 
compensation  had  the  knowledge  that  my  physicians 
were  false  prophets;  that,  barring  accidents,  I  could 
count  on  thirty,  forty,  even  fifty  years  with  their  sum- 
mers and  autumns  and  winters.  And  that  was  the 
life  I  desired — the  life  the  heart  can  conceive — the 
earth  life.  When  I  hear  people  say  they  have  not 
found  the  world  and  life  so  agreeable  or  interesting 
as  to  be  in  love  with  it,  or  that  they  look  with 
equanimity  to  its  end,  I  am  apt  to  think  they  have 
never  been  properly  alive  nor  seen  with  clear  vision 
the  world  they  think  so  meanly  of,  or  anything  in  it — 
not  a  blade  of  grass.  Only  I  know  that  mine  is  an 
exceptional  case,  that  the  visible  world  is  to  me  more 


332  FAR  AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO 

beautiful  and  interesting  than  to  most  persons,  that 
the  delight  I  experienced  in  my  communings  with 
Nature  did  not  pass  away,  leaving  nothing  but  a  recol- 
lection of  vanished  happiness  to  intensify  a  present  pain. 
The  happiness  was  never  lost,  but  owing  to  that  faculty 
I  have  spoken  of,  had  a  cumulative  ef¥ect  on  the  mind 
and  was  mine  again,  so  that  in  my  worst  times,  when 
I  was  compelled  to  exist  shut  out  from  Nature  in 
London  for  long  periods,  sick  and  poor  and  friend- 
less, I  could  yet  always  feel  that  it  was  infinitely  better 
to  be  than  not  to  be. 


THE  END 


GETTY  CENTER  LIBRARY 


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